Your brand is the most important part of your company, and if the colors and design of your branding are dated, it can have a negative impact on your company. Those businesses with dated brands appear to be dated themselves, and many customers will leave them for newer companies that offer similar products and services. The belief, although not accurate, is that dated companies are not as “with it” as current companies, and if your brand is dated, your consumers will start to think of your company as the elderly of your niche.
In order to determine if your brand colors are dated, you need to look for the obvious signs.
You’re glossy.
Glossy colors were popular back in the early 2000s, but now the right thing to do is to stick with more matte and subtle colors. If your website, blog or website is donned with glossy backgrounds, images, buttons or logos, you’ll want to make a design change stat.
You’re using shadows.
There are plenty of fonts and colors that use shadows in the background, but these are no longer current color choices. Shadowed designs and colors were popular back in the late 90s, but if you want to impress your clients by telling them that you’re still in the now, then you’ll want to drop your shadows.
You’re busy.
Busy colors and backgrounds are no longer the best choice for your brand. Instead, you want to opt for clean lines, colors and shapes. For example, if the background of your website or logo has multiple colors, it will make it very hard for your customers to read your content or focus on the main points. Try to stick with three colors for your branding efforts. This will help you stay current and avoid making any busy color mistakes.
You still use rainbow gradients.
Just like being busy, rainbow gradients are a thing of the past. If the colors of your brand still use the rainbow gradient feature, it’s telling your audience that your branding is stuck in a time warp.
You’re neon.
Although the neon colors from the 80s are making their way back into fashion, it’s not necessarily true about branding. Neon colors are not the way to go when it comes to branding efforts. If your company is using neon colors, you’re simply telling your customers that your brand is outdated. Neon colors are not a part of a color scheme that lasts throughout the years. Instead it comes and goes, and the minute that neon colors are no longer fashionable, neither will your brand.
Your colors are random.
It’s imperative that your company’s branding colors mirror the brand that you want to portray. This means that your social media sites, blogs, websites and any other design or marketing collateral you generate should use the same colors. If you use a variety of different colors every time that you create marketing collateral, you need to change this. While it may not tell your customers that you’re outdated, it certainly doesn’t give them any brand recognition for your company, and that’s extremely dangerous.
Selma Jones works for Cloverleaf innovation. Find out more about branding and segmentation by visiting their website.
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