How many colours should a brand palette have?

Usually one or two primary colours and a small set of secondary and (if needed) tertiary colours. Any more than that and recognition becomes hard to maintain at scale.

What's the difference between a primary and secondary colour?

Primary colours carry the most brand recognition and appear most often, while secondary colours support the palette by adding balance and contrast.

Does colour psychology actually work, or is it overstated?

Colour psychology is a credible and helpful means of steering a palette, but perception is ultimately subjective. A colour can mean what a brand consistently makes it mean.

Does colour meaning change across cultures?

Yes, significantly. A colour that reads as trustworthy in one market can carry entirely different associations elsewhere, which is why it's worth sense-checking before launching internationally.

How long should a brand stick with the same colour palette?

As long as it's still working. Colour is one of the most recognisable brand assets, so changing it carries more risk than most other rebrand decisions.

Branding Handbook

Visual Identity

Colour Palette

A colour palette is the specific set of colours a brand claims as its own, in order to shape how it's perceived by its audience.

What is a colour palette?

A colour palette in branding refers to the selection and ratio of colours that a brand uses consistently to build recognition and perception.

Considered one of key components of a visual identity, a colour palette helps define a brand's mood and positioning in the eyes of its target audience, drawing on colour psychology to evoke the way we feel about a company, product, or service.

Landing on the right colour palette for a brand takes more than picking shades that sit well together. Each colour has its own strategic reason for being included, with the goal of becoming synonymous with that brand.

How does a colour palette get built?

Audit the competitor landscape first

A survey of the category's most dominant colours should highlight which ones should be avoided, allowing you to build a palette that sets your brand apart.

Start from a compelling strategic idea

Every colour you pick should have a strategic justification behind it. Rule out any options that aren't in-line with your brand's personality or positioning.

Build a hierarchy

Clearly define your primary, secondary and, if necessary, tertiary colours, along with clear logic around when and where they're used.

Stress-test them for accessibility

Measure contrast ratios and simulate colour vision deficiencies to make sure each colour in your palette stacks up against WCAG guidance.

Document the exact values

Clearly mark the hex, RGB, CMYK, and Pantone codes for each colour in your brand guidelines to prevent drift as more people apply the palette.

How a colour palette works in practice: Pachama

Pachama needed a colour story that could make carbon credits—an abstract, hard-to-trust concept—feel not only tangible but credible. The answer came from an unusual source: the data itself.

Nature

Sustainability

B2B

Pachama

Rather than choosing colours from a swatch book, the palette was derived directly from LiDAR scan data, the same satellite imaging used by Pachama to measure forest carbon.

These colours were spun into a rainbow palette which also referenced the natural iridescence found in beetles, birds, shells and leaves. It's on full display in the marquee devices, pointillist tree graphics, and textural landscape maps that help make up Pachama's wider visual identity.

Outcome: A colour palette that reinforces the idea at the heart of Pachama: making the invisible, visible.

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