When designing or re-designing a business logo, one of the most important steps is choosing the colors.
Color can have a major impact on somebody’s emotional reaction to a brand. With the right knowledge, you can take advantage of color to benefit your company.
One of the most powerful colors is blue. This is because blue evokes feelings of trust.
In this article, we’ll show you why blue is the color of trust and how to use blue for your business.
Why is Blue Trustworthy?
Why does blue make things feel trustworthy?
Color is a favorite area of study for scientists and psychologists. Through a number of studies, they research how color affects our minds.
Despite the many studies, it’s hard to nail down a singular scientific reason our brains equates blue to trust. But we do know many correlations and associations most people have with blue.
Everybody Likes Blue
Blue is the most popular color around the world.
One study found that 42% of males and 30% of females would pick blue as their favorite color. Red and green are next on the list.
If you ask any random person what their favorite color is, they’ll probably say blue. If blue isn’t their favorite, it’s probably second or third. Very few people dislike blue, which makes it a very safe color for branding and marketing.
In simple terms, blue is a popular color.
Blue is Familiar
If you want to see blue, all you have to do is step outside and look up.
Between the blue hues of the sky above and the bluish tint of oceans and lakes, blue has some decent real estate.
Besides sky and water, blue pigment is rare in nature. Greens and browns are much more common. Its natural rarity hasn’t stopped humans from using blue in just about everything.
Walk down any given street and you’ll see blue all around you. Blue cars, blue clothing, blue mailboxes, blue signs, blue storefronts, blue packaging. This color is everywhere.
That familiarity with the color blue likely contributes to the trust factor. People are comfortable with the things they’re familiar with.
By using blue in your logo and marketing materials, you’re falling in line with a lot of other brands. This might seem counterintuitive, as you would think that making your brand stick out from the crowd would be more beneficial.
But, when it comes to being trustworthy, sticking out isn’t necessarily the best course of action.
Blue is Both Bold and Calm
Blue is unique in that it displays a vibrant boldness while also being calm and relaxing.
When you think of red, you think of power. You think of fire and heat and strength.
But you might also associate red with Darth Vader’s lightsaber or the Soviet Union or Hell. Red is powerful, but it’s often associated with evil or something sinister. Not exactly something to want for your brand.
Blue, however, shows power and confidence without the evil connotation. This is Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, not Vader’s.
Despite being such a bold color, blue is also a calm, cool color.
Studies have shown that blue relaxes your mood, and even lowers your blood pressure. Darker blues are often recommended as bedroom wall colors to help you calm down before bed and sleep better.
Even the brightest shades of blue are easy on the eyes, compared with harsh warm colors like yellow and orange.
Blue is thus a versatile color. It’s strong and bold without being extreme. Regardless of which shade or tint you choose, you’re getting an effective, likable color that plays to many emotions, including trust.
Which Companies Use Blue?
Because of the reasons we’ve described above, blue is a very popular color to use on logos and other branding materials.
Many of the world’s largest and most recognizable corporations choose to use blue as their primary color. In many cases, the desire for the unconscious evocation of trust plays a significant role in the decision.
Banking and Finances
The financial sector is perhaps the industry which most desires and requires the trust of their clients. After all, they deal with people’s money, and often in large sums.
Banks, investment groups, and insurance companies love to incorporate blue into their color scheme to try and earn some of that color-derived trust. Here’s a collection of some of the largest financial companies that use blue in their branding:
- AIG
- Allianz
- Allstate
- American Express
- Bank of America
- Barclays
- BBVA Compass
- Capital One
- Chase
- Citi
- Goldman Sachs
- New York Life
- PayPal
- Visa
Technology
Tech companies also want to earn the trust of their customers.
Some of them, like phone and computer companies, often deal with sensitive personal information. For them to be successful, they need people to trust them to keep their data secure.
Here are some of the top technology companies with blue logos:
- AT&T
- Boeing
- Dell
- General Electric
- Hewlett-Packard
- IBM
- Intel
- Motorola
- Nokia
- Panasonic
- Samsung
- Siemens
Retail
Retail stores sell their customers products and take their money.
They need those customers to trust in the quality of their clothes, food, and other goods.
Here’s a few national retail corporations that feature blue:
- Bed Bath & Beyond
- Food Lion
- Gap
- Ikea
- Kroger
- Lowe’s
- Old Navy
- Sam’s Club
- Sears
- Wal-Mart
Automotive
When you buy and drive a car you’re entrusting your life to the sturdy manufacturing of the vehicle. If something fails, you could be looking at a deadly incident. It makes sense that auto companies desire trust, too.
These logos feature the color blue:
- BMW
- Ford
- General Motors
- Hyundai
- Mazda
- Saab
- Subaru
- Volkswagen
- Volvo
Social Media
Social networks also deal with sensitive personal information. And given some of the recent data issues with Facebook, these social media sites need all the extra trust they can get.
- Periscope
- Skype
News & Media
People rely on fair and impartial news outlets to get their information.
With all the talk of “fake news,” these media companies hope that some blue hues can give their readers and viewers some more reassurance:
- Business Insider
- CBS
- Forbes
- Fox
- Fox News
- ProPublica
- The Weather Channel
- USA Today
- U.S. News & World Report
How to Use Blue
It’s clear that blue is a great color to use on your logo and branding if you want to build trust with customers and clients.
So how can you incorporate blue into your marketing efforts?
Wordmark
Many of the companies listed above use a simple wordmark as a logo.
Choose a nice typeface, and make the letters blue. Straightforward, but effective.
Symbol
If you prefer to use a symbol or icon for your logo, blue is easy to use as well.
The various shapes and pictures within your symbol can utilize blue as a fill color. You can also use blue as a background color or as an outline.
Digital
Your branding goes beyond your logo.
If you want to use blue as a primary color, you need to use it across all mediums, including in the digital space.
Blue should be a central color on your website, as well as on your social media profiles. You can make menus, backgrounds, profile pictures, and banners blue.
Packaging
If you sell a product, your packaging should feature blue as well.
Boxes, containers, and wraps can all use blue. To save some money on printing, remember that the whole thing doesn’t need to be blue; products like water bottles have a clear plastic with a small branding wrap, with a colored bottle cap.
Office/Store Decor
We mentioned how blue is often a recommended wall color for bedrooms. You can also paint your store and office blue.
When somebody walks in, the blue environment will calm them down and give them a trusting feel.
Create Your Blue Logo
Want to use your new knowledge of how to use blue to create a great new logo for your organization?
Get started now by using our free digital Logo Maker.
