What Is Color Theory? Basics and Fundamentals for Your Brand

Have you ever noticed that the eco-friendly option in the grocery aisle tends to be packaged in green? And cereal boxes tend to be bright red and yellow? 

That’s because green makes people think of nature, and red and yellow make people feel happy and energized. 

Colors guide our shopping decisions without us realizing it. This works online too. Website colors immediately shape how we feel about brands. Tools like Shopify help businesses design their websites with color psychology in mind, whether you’re just starting out or looking to expand.

One way to make sure the right brand colors are working for you is to use color theory. Here’s how to do that. 

What is color theory?

Color theory studies how colors are created and how they influence people’s moods. Research shows that colors affect our emotions. 

For example, red often feels exciting and powerful, green suggests health, and blue is linked to trust and calm. Different color schemes can make people feel differently. Color harmony, also part of color theory, is when a group of colors looks pleasing together.

Additive vs. subtractive color models

This difference between additive and subtractive color models can be important when you are making sure branding is consistent between your website and printed materials. Here’s what you need to know:

• Additive color model (RGB): Used for screens (like websites and TVs), this model creates colors by adding light. Red, green, and blue light combine to form all visible colors. For example, red and green light together appear yellow to our eyes because they process light wavelengths as combinations of these three colors.
• Subtractive color model (CMYK): Used for printing, this model creates colors by mixing pigments (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). Each pigment absorbs certain wavelengths of light, so adding more pigments reduces the light reflected back, creating darker colors.

Since printed and electronically produced colors use different color models, they are calibrated using different color codes. For instance, Coca-Cola’s red color code is 244 0 0 on the RGB scale (the zeros mean no green or blue) and 4 100 95 0 on the CMYK scale. 

Understanding color theory

Color theory is about understanding colors, which includes:

• How we see colors
• How colors work together
• How colors affect our feelings and actions

It combines ideas from art, science, and psychology to explain why some colors look good together and how they make us feel certain emotions.

Color has three key components:

• Hue: The name of the color, like red, yellow, green, or blue.
• Lightness (or value): How dark or light a color is.
• Chroma (or saturation): How bright or intense a color looks.

Changing one of these can completely change the mood or message of a design. If you work in design, branding, or marketing, knowing color theory is useful for connecting with customers. 

Colors can change how we feel, think, or act. For example:

• 🔵 Blue: Helps us stay focused and alert.
• 🔴 Red: Can make us eat faster or feel more energetic.

Personal preferences and culture also affect how we feel about colors. That’s why it’s important to test color schemes with your target audience.

9 color theory basics

These nine color theory basics will help anyone who wants to use colors more effectively.

1. The color wheel

A color wheel is an organized visual representation of colors across the spectrum. All the hues and shades of colors are known as the gamut of colors on a color wheel. Most people are familiar with the color wheel for art, which uses red, yellow, and blue as its foundational colors. This is the oldest and most common color wheel. 

The primary and secondary colors (red, yellow, blue, green, purple, and orange), along with black, white, brown, pink, and gray, make up the color categories or color terms. In theory, all colors fall into one of these basic categories. Including only primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, there are 12 colors on the color wheel. 

2. Primary, secondary, and tertiary colors

The color wheel organizes hues into a logical system that helps us understand how colors relate to each other and how they can be combined effectively. It’s broken down into the categories of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.

Primary colors 

In a traditional color wheel, the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. These are the colors that cannot be made by combining any other colors.

Secondary colors

Secondary colors are the result of the pure combination of two primary colors. There are three of them: orange (red and yellow combined), green (yellow and blue), and purple (blue and red). 

Each primary color on the color wheel is located directly opposite the secondary color made up by the other two primary colors. In other words, red is opposite to green, yellow to purple, and blue to orange. Those pairs of colors sit opposite one another on the color wheel and are known as complementary colors. 

Tertiary colors 

Tertiary colors are found between the primary and secondary colors. For instance, between yellow and green there is yellow-green, and between red and orange there is red-orange. There are six tertiary colors. 

3. Color schemes

A color scheme is a group of colors used for something specific, like a brand, event, room, or outfit. A good color scheme includes a small number of colors that work well together.

For example, if you go into a drugstore in the US during the first week of July, you’ll notice the common colors of red, white, and dark blue, which are the colors of the American flag.

You can create a color scheme from any base color. There are six major types of color schemes:

Monochromatic

Monochromatic schemes use just one color in different light and dark versions. For example, PayPal uses light blue and dark blue in its logo.

Analogous

Analogous color schemes use three colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel, like teal, blue, and green. The Mastercard logo shows this with a red circle and yellow circle that overlap to make orange.

Complementary

Complementary color schemes use two colors that sit across from each other on the color wheel. For example, Christmas decorations often use the complementary colors red and green.

Triadic

Triadic color schemes use three colors spaced evenly around the color wheel. Superman’s outfit is a good example: blue suit, red cape, and yellow logo.

Tetradic (square or rectangle)

A tetradic color scheme uses four colors. 

In a square pattern, the colors are spaced evenly around the wheel. In a rectangle pattern, you pick two neighboring colors and their opposites. For example, blue and blue-green, plus orange and reddish-orange. 

Google’s logo shows this well with its red, yellow, green, and blue scheme.

Split complementary

This color scheme uses one main color plus two colors next to its opposite. If purple is your main color, you’d use yellow-orange and yellow-green as accents.

Taco Bell’s former logo does this with purple as the main color, accented with pink and yellow.

4. Tint, shade, and tone

Color variations like tint, shade, and tone help create broader color palettes from a single hue to set the mood. 

• Tint: A hue mixed with white to create lighter versions.
• Shade: A hue mixed with black to make darker versions.
• Tone: A hue mixed with gray to produce more muted versions.

Using these tactics, from just one blue, a designer can make dozens of different blues, like cyan, royal blue, or navy. This helps make sure your designs or artworks say exactly what you want them to say.

5. Color temperature

Color temperature uses Kelvin (K) to measure how warm or cool light appears.

• Lower numbers (2,000K to 3,000K) create warm, yellow-orange light, like candles or sunset. 
• Higher numbers (5,000K to 6,500K) produce cool, bluish-white light, like noon daylight.

Understanding color temperature helps create natural-looking images or deliberate mood effects. Photographers and filmmakers use this concept to control how colors appear. For example, indoor lighting is typically warmer (3,200K), while daylight is cooler (5,500K). 

6. Color harmony

Color harmony is when colors work well together. Think of it like the visual version of music notes that sound nice together. 

When designers pick colors that match well, those harmonious colors:

• Make designs more attractive
• Help people read text and find buttons more easily on websites
• Support the development of a strong brand that people remember
• Evoke certain feelings (e.g., warm colors excite, cool colors calm)

For the best results, designers:

• Choose one main color first
• Mix warm and cool colors
• Use contrast to make important elements stand out
• Make sure the design is accessible
• Test colors before finalizing

7. Color psychology

Color psychology looks at how colors affect our feelings, actions, and emotions. 

Colors influence us through biological responses (like heart rate changes), cultural associations, and personal experiences. Warm colors (red, orange, yellow) typically energize and stimulate, while cool colors (blue, green, purple) tend to calm and relax.

Each color carries different meanings: 

• Red: Excitement, urgency, danger
• Blue: Calm, trust, reliability
• Green: Nature, health, growth
• Yellow: Happiness, creativity, optimism
• Orange: Energy, warmth, enthusiasm
• Purple: Luxury, royalty, spirituality
• White: Clean, pure, simple
• Black: Power, elegance, mystery

While individual responses vary based on culture and personal history, thoughtful color choices impact how people feel and act in different environments.

8. Color context and perception

Colors aren’t fixed. They change based on their surroundings. A green sweater might look different under store lights versus sunlight, or when placed next to different colors. Our eyes and brain are always adjusting what we see, but they aren’t perfect.

Various industries use precise measuring tools to ensure color accuracy across products and locations. Understanding these effects helps create better visual experiences and maintain consistent quality in everything from clothing to safety signs.

9. Color contrast

Color contrast happens when colors differ in brightness, saturation, or hue. It’s used to create branding designs that catch the eye and improve user experience (UX). 

When it comes to creating accessible design experiences—particularly when they involve reading text—it’s important to use high contrast color schemes. For example, dark text on a light background (like navy on pale yellow) is much easier to read than similar colors paired together (like light gray on white).

Companies use strong color contrast in their logos to be more memorable. Using the same color pairs consistently helps people recognize your brand.

How to use color theory for your business

Choosing the right colors for your website and logo can subtly nudge consumers to feel one way or another toward your brand. 

Here’s how to use color theory for your business:

1. Decide on your message
2. Conduct competitor research
3. Pick your dominant color
4. Pick your accent colors
5. Incorporate brand colors throughout your business

1. Decide on your message 

Think about what message you want to send with your brand or what feelings you want people to have. Pick colors that match what your business is about and who you want to attract. 

Colors have different meanings, so take the time to research what different colors mean in the context of your target audience’s culture. For example, pink and purple are often seen as feminine, so visual branding with those colors might attract more women.

2. Conduct competitor research

In addition to matching your message, your color palette should make sense within your industry. Market research helps you choose colors that both stand out and fit within your industry’s expectations. 

Look at which colors similar businesses are using in their branding, and check out resources like the Shopify Themes Store to get inspiration from pre-made website designs. You won’t want to copy any other color palettes exactly, but this research will help you understand what’s typical in your field. Spotting industry trends will help contextualize your branding decisions. 

As you research, it helps to create a mood board to gather inspiration and test how different colors work together.

3. Pick your dominant color

Pick one main color for your brand that will appear most often on your website, logo, and other materials.

Ask yourself:

• Does this color create the feeling I want customers to have about my business?
• Does it match my business’s energy?

For example:

• Bright red works well for a children’s party planner (it feels fun and exciting).
• But the same bright red might look scary for a cosmetic surgery office.

Your main color should match what your business does and how you want customers to feel when they see it.

4. Pick your accent colors

Guided by the relationships found in one of the color schemes listed above, use the color wheel to find harmonic accent colors, or use a color palette generator to produce options. 

Notice that even the most complicated color schemes use only four colors, while limiting two or three of those colors to accents.

5. Incorporate brand colors throughout your business 

Once you’ve locked in your color scheme, use it everywhere.

• Update your website colors to match.
• Redesign your logo and related brand assets.
• Refresh social media profiles, covers, and post templates.
• Use the same colors to redesign your product packaging. 
• Make sure your business cards and flyers use the same colors. 

Consistency across all customer touchpoints create a strong and recognizable brand identity.