A few weeks ago I shared on my Instagram story my process for picking brand colors. This was something I genuinely enjoyed doing for my own business. And well…with quarantine in full effect, I had nothing but time. So why not update those highlight covers?
This method is elementary school level marketing, I am NOT a professional. That being said, though, I sure have some stellar colors and branding hacks that I’ve picked up through the years. Here is a step-by-step tutorial to finding authentic colors. Note: this will NOT work if you’re trying to be someone you’re not, this is not for imitation or for trying to fit the mold, it is for finding your brand. Because sweet friend, no one does you better than YOU.
For this project you will need the following
- Pinterest Account
- Canva Account
- Word Doc/Notepad (a place easily accessible for copy/paste)
- optional glass of wine
Make a secret board on your Pinterest account specifically for branding (or logo or site design or fonts- whatever you need presently). Utilize the subcategory options if you want!
Type in ‘color palette’ or if you have a specific favorite color (mine has always been yellow).
Pin away! Don’t overthink it but pin color palettes that elicit joy. Simply pin the images that make you happy (NOT the ones that make sense necessarily).
Pinterest will start to predict what colors you’re into the more you pin. Another cool feature to explore? Click on ‘MORE IDEAS’ on the board home.
In Canva, create a new design. I used the Blog Banner dimensions and added 6 long rectangles to create a piano palette (technical terms guys). Open up a side-by-side with your Pinterest board.
Using the color wheel in Canva, play with the colors until you get a collection that looks good. You want at least 6 colors for primary and secondary uses. You need some neutrals + colors that play well with one another.
Copy the color codes and paste them into a note or word doc for future reference. They are universal color codes and can be used to adjust all Canva templates, Word Press, Square Space, Google and Lightroom/Adobe products.
I updated simple things like the highlight covers on IG, the graphics on my Market Report, the buttons on my email newsletter through MailPoet, my blog banner and of course, right here in this very post. You probably noticed my steps are all brand colors! I now use Canva more for IG text stories, if you upgrade to the premium version, you can save the colors within the app itself for ease- OTHERWISE- keep enjoying this entirely free hack.
Now take a sip of that wine and keep pinning. I am doing the same system for Fonts and full site design/layouts. Real talk…probably doing this for my main living floor at my house to keep with me when Homegoods finally opens back up.
