2017 Color Trends That Influence Consumers

We know peo­ple are deeply affect­ed and influ­enced by col­or — both psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Col­or has mean­ings that come from the past, but also evolve into new ones as trends may shift based on region­al and pop­u­lar cul­ture. Because col­or reg­is­ters with it’s view­er more pro­found­ly than any oth­er ele­ment of brand­ing, the more con­sis­ten­cy with which you use your brand col­or, the more you empow­er and build your brand recognition.

2017 Color trends that Influence consumers

1. Why Color Matters

Col­or is an often mis­un­der­stood and under­uti­lized ele­ment. Col­or shouldn’t be select­ed just because it’s pret­ty or sole­ly on instinct. It plays a key role in trig­ger­ing a view­ers’ psy­cho­log­i­cal and emo­tion­al response.

Col­or defines per­son­al­i­ty, mood and feel­ing. Con­text is key. For exam­ple, Whole Foods and Star­bucks use green to con­nect their brand per­son­al­i­ty trait about healthy liv­ing. Both brands are very inten­tion­al about their food/product sourc­ing and use this col­or to sup­port it as well as to con­nect that mes­sage with their audi­ence. If they chose to use gray, they would not only lose brand essence BIG time, but pro­found­ly change what they are com­mu­ni­cat­ing, i.e.: healthy liv­ing or eth­i­cal­ly sourced/sustained prod­ucts do not align with a gray color.

2. Brand Recognition Through Color

We can eas­i­ly rec­og­nize sev­er­al brands based on their col­or. What col­or do you asso­ciate in your minds eye when you think of these well known brands: Tar­get. Girl Scouts. Twit­ter. Sprint. Chances are you saw red, green, blue and yel­low… and when you read this list, did you also find your­self spon­ta­neous­ly “see­ing” the Tar­get, Girl Scouts, Twit­ter or Sprint logos in your mind’s eye?  If so, that was sim­ply from the men­tion of col­or! There could be no more pro­found exam­ple of what we are stay­ing than that right there!

3. Color and Market Trends

Every col­or exudes a cer­tain emo­tion. It’s mean­ing can be influ­enced by mar­ket trends, which reflect cur­rent cul­tur­al shifts. Each year Pan­tone selects a col­or of the year based on these shifts. These col­or trends influ­ence var­i­ous aspects of the mar­ket, from archi­tec­ture, to fash­ion, to graph­ic design, tex­tiles and inte­ri­ors, as well as artists, musi­cians and even food. This year, the 2017 Pan­tone col­or is Green­ery. It’s sym­bol­ic of new begin­nings and con­nects with our grow­ing need to con­nect back with nature or a high­er pur­pose. Green­ery is a fresh yel­low-green shade that sig­nals con­sumers to take a deep breath and feel reinvigorated.

With this col­or trend you will like­ly see:

• More brands adapt­ing envi­ron­men­tal efforts and may use green tones in their mar­ket­ing to com­mu­ni­cate it
• Empha­sis on the con­nec­tion we seek with nature
• Adver­tis­ing that incor­po­rates a “green” mes­sage in some form
• Rise in pho­tog­ra­phy show­ing peo­ple enjoy­ing the outdoors
• Peo­ple lead­ing a sus­tain­able life as a need­ed life-style over a trend

Under­stand­ing these trends can help you gath­er some insight, but keep in mind that not all col­or pre­dic­tions will align with your busi­ness and the emo­tion­al con­nec­tion you want to achieve. Know­ing the true pur­pose of your brand and who you are try­ing to reach are crit­i­cal in mak­ing the right col­or selec­tion for your brand.

Per­haps you are a mar­ket­ing man­ag­er, an avid Insta­gramer, a graph­ic design­er, blog­ger or a small busi­ness own­er that REALLY wants to stand out — not just this year, but every year. You may not have the time to research what col­or trends are, what emo­tions they can evoke, which are work­ing or worth imple­ment­ing, make sure you down­load Nicte Cre­ative Design’s Annu­al 2017 Col­or Trends Guide­book.