How to style your brand using seasonal colour theory

How to Style Your Brand using Seasonal Colour Theory

An introduction to using seasonal colour theory to create your branding style and your brand visual identity – what it is and how it will help you.

Create the right impression for your business, with a brand that reflects you and stands out, by designing your brand visual identity using seasonal colour theory.

Your visual brand

Deciding on your visual branding is the fun part of creating your whole brand!  The BrandING part of your brand. 

This is where you choose your brand colours, fonts, any patterns and textures, and graphics; and your brand photo style, logo, website design and more, also follow on from it.

You need to create a cohesive and consistent brand so that it all goes together to help make your brand recognisable, and memorable.  Using seasonal colour theory to do this will supercharge all that, meaning that your whole brand looks amazing, and professional, reflects you, and appeals to your ideal clients/customers.  Even when you’ve designed it all yourself.

Styling your brand with seasonal colours

I first came across the idea of using the seasons as a way of dividing up colours, when I met a personal stylist at one of the first networking meetings I went to after starting my business.  She uses your skin tone to find out which colours really suit you to wear, and puts you into the relevant season bracket. (I’ll be writing about that in another blog at some point, but it was a huge confidence boost to find out what colours look amazing on me and I really recommend it!  We collaborated for headshot and branding photo shoots too, so that your photos capture you looking your very best, until sadly she moved away from the area).

So when I discovered Fiona Humberstone’s work as The Brand Stylist soon after, using the same colour theory with the seasons, but also using personalities related to those seasons too, for creating brands, I was hooked on that too.  I have learnt lots from Fiona's books, put it into practice, and put my own branding knowledge into how I use it too.  (I’ve linked to her website at the end of this blog if you’d like to find out more). 

The basics of seasonal colour theory for brands

The idea is in a nutshell, that each season has its own set of colours that goes with the personality of that season.  And you can use that personality for styling everything across a brand from its tone of voice to its fonts and its photography style.  And when you do that, all those different aspects of the brand are so much more cohesive and enable that brand to connect authentically and emotionally with its ideal clients/customers. 

Have a look at the images of the four seasons in this page, and you can see how different they all are just from these.  Colours for each season are the same/pretty similar as for personal styling. 

Keep reading to find out more about the different seasonal personalities and how that affects their colours below...

Styling your brand using the seasonal personalities

Spring is bursting with energy as everything starts to grow.  The Spring personality is enthusiastic and fun, social and creative, energetic and optimistic.  Colours to represent that are warm and light and bright – Spring greens and daffodils.  

Summer is lazier and hazier than Spring.  The Summer personality is efficient and organised, logical and responsible, and loves detail, quality and style.  Colours representing that are cool and soft and muted – roses and lavender.    

Autumn is more energetic than Summer, as the harvest is fruitful and leaves begin to turn.  The Autumn personality is independent and authentic, passionate and just, friendly and loyal.  Colours are warm, darker and slightly muted – think of Autumn leaves!  

Winter is a season of sparkling snow and blue skies, contrasting with darker days.  The Winter personality is ambitious but grounded, practical and focused but also dramatic and dynamic.  Colours representing that are cool and clear and bright – monochrome plus bright pops of colour, and ice pale tones too.  

Isn't it clever! The colours and personality of each season can then be personalised to you and your brand, and used to create a whole cohesive visual branding identity.

Finding the right season for your brand

You are what makes your business unique, so you need to use that in your brand too so that you stand out from your competitors. 

So you need to use your personality and values when it comes to deciding on which season to base your brand in, as well as what will appeal to your ideal clients/customers. 

You could start with brainstorming lots of words to describe the look, feel, mood and style that you want your brand to have.  Then narrow this down to your top three to five words that sum it all up.  Then, bearing these words in mind, along with your values and your ideal client/customer, take my quiz to see which season you fit into.  Or just start with the quiz and see which words from your season feel right for how you want your brand to look. 

You’ll need to sign up to take the quiz, so that I can email you with your results, more info about each of the seasons, and tips to put your new seasonal style into practice (but you can unsubscribe at any point). 

(Using the words from your season, and your brainstorming words will also help you choose your brand vibe keywords, which will take your overall brand from confused and chaotic to captivating and converting your audience.  See more at From Brand Confusion To Brand Clarity).

How to Style Your Brand using Seasonal Colour Theory

When you’ve got your brand season, you can use its personality and colours to design your visual brand identity (or to refresh, or personalise, or fill in the gaps of what you already have). 

Your brand season will help you choose your fonts, patterns and textures, and to design your graphics.  It will help you with your brand tone of voice, and with your photography style.  It will help you style your brand with flair and create something that is distinctive and unique to you.  It will look professional and stylish, but also have depth and meaning. 

I find it is such a good way to help you design your branding yourself, even when you don't feel very creative or don't know much about it, because it gives you such a good starting point for what you need to look great, look professional, and work effectively for you to attract the right people to buy.

Once you've got it sorted/updated, don't forget you need to use your brand style across everything you create for your business, so that every time your customer/client comes across your brand, it is all consistent and you become recognisable and memorable.  You’re building your brand awareness and attracting more of those ideal clients and customers to you.

I really hope you found this introduction to seasonal colour theory for brands as interesting and useful as I do.  Do take my quiz and let me know the result!  There's a thread pinned at the top of my Facebook group Your Brand Story to share yours and see what everyone else is.  And enjoy using your perfect season to style your brand 🙂     

Find out more from Fiona Humberstone, The Brand Stylist’s website here, including links to her books – read How to Style Your Brand first, then Brand Brilliance.  Or you can just read more in my next blog about how to choose your brand colours, using colour psychology as well as your season to make sure you pick the right colours for you: How to choose your brand colours using colour psychology.

Next Steps:

- Once you've done the free quiz, take my self study course, From Brand Confusion To Brand Clarity - how to find your brand vibe, to work out your brand keywords that will keep your whole brand and branding cohesive and consistent, thus becoming more recognisable and memorable, improving trust and encouraging buyers.

- Next up is my whole course taking you through step by step how to design your beautiful branding yourself (even if you're not feeling creative!).  From Drab To Fab will be ready soon!

- Ready for more personal mentoring, brand, visibility and marketing strategies that work for you, a community of fellow ambitious introverts, training, and accountability to put it all into action?  Come and join my Brand Plan membership, and get support to show up, stand out, and sell more🤩

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Blog topics / categories: 

#All Things Brand

[This blog was first written in August 2020, then transferred to this website, January 2024]