Do you have a purple logo? If yes, then read on to see if it’s the right colour for your brand.
Purple is a secondary colour, created by mixing two primary colours (red & blue). It’s directly opposite yellow on the colour wheel.
Countries throughout the world use the colour purple to indicate honour, courage, royalty and leadership, faith and sacredness. And, it’s even used as a sign of mourning in a few cultures. Purple suggests wealth and extravagance, fantasy and the world of dreams. It enhances spiritual pursuits and enlightenment. Physiologically, it heightens people’s sense of beauty and their reaction to more creative ideas. It’s associated with mystical powers, intuition and higher levels of perception and different levels of consciousness. So if you’re a psychic or work in the spiritual sectors, then purple is a perfect colour for your logo.
Purple is a colour, along with pink/magenta, associated with the female sex. In fact, it’s been voted women’s second favourite colour in recent studies – find out more in my article on Colour by Gender. For this reason, purple is more suitable for products and services related to women or children. Academic institutions often use a purple logo or visual identity as it inspires intellectual thought and achievement.
Colours that complement a purple logo
Purple portrays wealth and extravagance especially when combined with gold. Gold is harder to reproduce digitally, but a good graphic design should be able to create the shimmering effect. Purple and gold works beautifully on packaging and print material using a gold foil block. This combination works beautifully for high-end property brochures.
Yellow and purple also work well as a colour combination as they are contrasting colours. This means that they sit opposite each other on the colour wheel. If you want to grab peoples attention then this colour combination will work. It would work well for brands focusing on children.
Finally, another popular colour combination for a purple logo is green. If you’re British and you love tennis, the Wimbledon logo will immediately spring to mind. Classic green for the lawn tennis element and then the purple ring which denotes honour, courage, leadership and ambition. Perfect qualities for the event don’t you agree?
Famous purple logos and brands
Big brands use the colour purple, mainly due to the universal meanings that it portrays: mystery, honour, creativity, luxury, leadership, and even sentimentality. You can see some top purple brands in the graphic at the top of this blog post. Interestingly, there are a couple of property brands as well as a two big chocolate brands that use purple. They do all share the qualities listed, so you really get a sense of why the colour was chosen for the brand.
Positive Colour Meanings:
- unusual and individual, creative and inventive
- psychic and intuitive
- humanitarian, selfless and unlimited
- mystery, fantasy and the future
Negative Colour Meanings:
- immaturity
- impractical
- pompous and arrogant
