Color Guide To Your Printed Advertising Materials

When deciding on a design for your business cards, brochures and similar printed materials, color is undoubtedly one of the main considerations you need to take up with your commercial printer. After all, colors can convey messages all on their own, apart from making your printed advertising more palatable to the eyes.

A poor choice in colors can render your material boring or just plain unreadable. A good choice, on the other hand, will immediately attract attention and prod potential customers to take notice. Colors can elicit certain emotions in people. Take note of color use in your promotional materials - after all, it can mean triggering the right combination of feelings to finally push that sale.

What do specific colors tend to do?

• Blue is one of the safest colors you can use for your business materials. Lighter shades of it can invoke feelings of tranquility and peace while darker shades often trigger images of reliability and confidence.
• Black is a serious color and paints an immediate picture of authority. Done well, it can bring up feelings of elegance, sophistication and class.
• White keeps things simple. Used throughout your printed materials, it can be used to communicate purity, innocence and a clarity of intentions.
• Green is a lively color that is often associated with nature. It can invoke images of life, vitality and good health. With the current trend of eco-awareness, green can also associate your business with an environmentally-friendly disposition.
• Red is the color of passion and is perfect for campaigns looking to invoke sensuality, excitement and other extreme emotions.
• Yellow is a lively that, much like orange, can manage to stand out from a crowd with little else involved. It symbolizes feelings of joy, warmth and hope.
• Orange is all about fun. Great for creative campaigns, it brings up images of enthusiasm and a dynamic vibe. It's also attention-grabbing - great for promotional materials that can stand out from the crowd.
• Purple is often used when targeting younger consumers. Children, for one reason or another, gravitate towards purple shades more than any other color. Employed for a more adult audience, though, they can be used to convey ideas of royalty and nobility.