Key Takeaways
Personal brand colors, at a glance
- If you are the face of your brand, your brand colors and your personal colors need to agree.
- Brand colors chosen from a trend board can clash with the person in every photo, video and stage moment.
- Your personal palette, drawn from your hair, skin and eyes, is a natural source for the colors around you: in photos, on video and in your space.
- Coherence between you and your brand reads as trust. Mismatch reads as something slightly off.
When you’re the face of your business, your brand isn’t only a logo and a website. It’s you: in your headshot, on stage, on a video call, in a social post. Which raises a question most personal branding guides never ask: do your brand colors actually go with you?
I’m not a graphic designer, and I don’t design logos. But in more than 40 years of color work, I’ve seen what happens when a person and her brand are wearing different palettes. She stands in front of her own banner, or her own website, and something feels slightly off. People can’t name it. They just feel it.
In this post I’ll explain why personal brand colors and personal colors should agree, and how to use your own palette as a guide.
Why Your Brand Colors and Your Colors Should Agree
The idea comes straight from nature. When I was about six, I stood in front of the house my mother had designed in Hibbing, Minnesota, and thought she had never looked more beautiful. Years later I understood why. The weathered pink brick was a deeper value of her skin tone. Even the sage green door was her eye color. The pink azaleas were her romantic tone. Her surroundings were in her own palette, so standing among them, she came forward.
In the same way, your brand can work for you. When the colors around you, on your website, in your photos, behind you on video, are in harmony with your own coloring, you look like you belong in your own brand. When they aren’t, you’re competing with it.
That matters because your personal brand depends on coherence: your outside telling the same story as your inside. If your brand’s colors tell a different story than you do, the signal splits.
Where Mismatch Shows Up
Many of the successful women I work with have invested in branding that doesn’t quite convert. Often, that’s because it doesn’t look or feel like them.
Here’s where a mismatch between brand colors and personal colors tends to show:
- Headshots and brand photos where you’re dressed to match your brand colors, but the colors wash you out or overpower your face
- Video calls with a branded background that fights your coloring
- Stage moments in front of a banner whose colors drain you
- Social media where your graphics and your face look like they belong to two different people
Your Personal Palette as a Guide
Your personal palette, drawn from your hair, skin and eyes, is a natural source for the colors around you. Each color carries its own energy, and that energy can inform what you want your brand to communicate.
- Power Color: leadership, expertise and respect. Wear it, or use a lighter value of it behind you on video.
- Eye color: balance, trust and clear communication.
- Skin tone: relatedness and approachability. It removes barriers.
- Support Color: community and calm.
- Romantic Red: passion and emotional persuasion.
- Neutrals and metals: grounding and polish.
Ask yourself what you want your brand to make people feel, then look for that energy in your own palette. As a result, a brand built on that foundation will look like you in every photo, because it came from you.
Contrast and Season Matter Too
Brand colors aren’t only about hue. They’re also about contrast and energy, and both should match your season.
- Springs are sunlight: fresh, playful, clear color. Heavy, dark, muted brand palettes can feel at odds with their energy.
- Summers are twilight: soft, refined, muted color. Stark, high-contrast brand palettes can overpower them.
- Autumns are firelight: warm, rich, textured color. Cool, pastel brand palettes can hide their warmth.
- Winters are moonlight: high contrast, black, white and jewel tones. Muted, dusty brand palettes can dull their drama.
If your natural level of contrast is low and your brand is stark black and white, you’ll look washed out in front of it. On the other hand, if your contrast is high and your brand is soft and muted, you may overpower it.
When Your Personal Brand Colors Are Already Set
You don’t have to rebrand to benefit from this.
- Dress for you, not your logo. Wear your own palette in photos and on stage, and let your brand colors appear in the graphics around you.
- Find the crossover. Most brand palettes include at least one color close to one of yours. Lean on it in photos and backgrounds.
- Change your backdrop. A lighter value of your Power Color behind you on video can bring your setting into harmony with you.
- Note it for later. If you ever refresh your brand, start from your own palette.
What to Do Next
- Put your headshot next to your website’s main colors. Do you look like you belong there?
- Check your video background. Does it support your coloring or compete with it?
- Ask what you want your brand to make people feel, and find that energy in your palette.
- Book a short conversation with my team to find your personal palette.
Your first step today: hold a sample of your brand’s main color up to your face in natural light and notice what happens.
When You Are the Brand
If you’re the face of your business, your brand colors aren’t just a design choice. They’re a backdrop for you. When they’re in harmony with your own coloring, everything people see tells one coherent story, and that story is you.
The first step is a short conversation about your goals. Book a Call with Jennifer’s Team.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I choose personal brand colors?
If you’re the face of your brand, start with your own palette, the colors drawn from your hair, skin and eyes. Choose based on the energy you want your brand to carry, and check that the colors support you in photos and on video.
Should my brand colors match my personal colors?
They should at least agree. When your brand’s colors clash with your coloring, you can look washed out or overpowered in your own photos and videos.
What if my brand colors are already set?
Wear your own palette in photos and on stage, lean on any crossover colors, and use a lighter value of your Power Color as your video background.
Do you design brand color palettes?
No. I’m a color expert, not a graphic designer. My work is your personal palette, which can guide the colors you and your designer choose.
