This is part 8 of our series: 31 DAYS of Setting Up Shop! You can find the entire list of days, in order on our Setting Up Shop Index Page. I'll add each new entry to this list as it is published.
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{branding with color}
Your brand is what sets your product and style apart from others. It's what makes your customers able to pick out your work from other designers and sellers. You need to define your brand. It builds customer loyalty and recognition.
This might well be my favorite post in this entire series. I love color, so building a color scheme for my brand is something I'm happy to spend hours working on. If I had hours to spend on color branding, that is.
When I was coming up with a color theme for my shops, and now for Gathered: A Vintage Marketplace, I did not worry about what colors were trending right now. Instead, I thought about the colors, and the color combinations, that make my heart skip a beat when I see them. (Yes, I have physical reactions to colors. Don't you?)
To show you what I mean, I did a little experiment. I gathered some of my favorite items and supplies from around the house--items that give me that "color rush" I'm looking for, and I took pictures of them.
Already, I can see a trend in the color groups that I've chosen. I love rich, saturated colors with a bit of age (or grey. or dirt.) in them. I also like to see these colors combined with a heavy dose of neutral.
Do you have little collections that make you flutter? Take a minute to snap a few pictures of them, and see if you are setting a trend of your own. Maybe you love layered whites, or pastels, or bright candy colors, or dark moody hues, browns and greys...
Whatever you pick for your brand, make sure you choose colors that you really love and can live with. This is why I suggest searching them out in your home. You want your brand colors to be a lasting way for people to recognize your work, and you don't want to get sick of them within the year!
After I took the above photos, I uploaded them to a fun website that generates color schemes from photos: Color Palette FX The website draws out the individual colors from your inspiration photos, and it lists their names, hex values, and sometimes which art supplies manufacture that color!
These are the generated schemes from my books, vintage zippers, and buttons:
From these pictures I can start to compile a list of colors that make me happy. Here we have coral, brick, mustard, teal, turquoise, navy, khaki, ecru, grey, and that dark brownish color that I don't have a name for, but is in every one of the schemes above.
I read an article by designer Anna Maria Horner, where she answered the common question, how do you choose the colors for your amazing fabric prints?? (They are wild, and if you aren't familiar with them, you must check them out!) She said that what is more important than which colors you include, is which colors you leave out.
So that's something to think about, too. Even if you love color, like I do, don't go for the whole rainbow. Leave a couple out. Like lilac, pink, and bright red for instance. Or stick to a certain tone. (My tone might be dusty) And if you are a little afraid of color, branch out and layer similar colors together...like grey, beige, ecru, navy, and white. I love layered neutrals. What color combos speak to you?
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We are going to coast on this "branding" theme a little while, so I will see you back here tomorrow for another perspective altogether!