Color plays a major role in branding and psychology. When designing custom work wear for your company, carefully choosing colors that align with your brand identity and provoke the desired psychological response in employees can make a big impact. Understanding color theory and psychology will help you pick the perfect hues for your branded work wear. Here’s what you need to know.

Choosing Primary Brand Colors

Start by picking one or two primary brand colors for your custom workwear that align with your brand personality. Bold reds convey excitement and energy, while cool blues are more professional and calming. Your brand’s logo colors are a great place to start. Select hues that you want people to associate with your brand image. Keep things cohesive by using these colors consistently across your workwear designs.

Consider Color Psychology

Each color elicits subconscious psychological reactions. Warm colors like red, orange and yellow spark feelings of warmth, positivity and creativity. Cool colors like blues, greens and purples evoke calm, trust and intelligence. Know what impressions you want your workwear colors to give and choose hues that align. Bolder brights feel playful, while muted tones are more subtle and traditional.

Complementary Color Schemes

Complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel, like blue and orange or red and green. Using complementary shades together creates visual harmony and balance. Start with your key brand color, then identify a complementary hue that brings out the best in it. Complementary color combos keep branding cohesive yet eye-catching.

Activewear Color Trends

For athletic workwear, look at current trends in activewear for inspiration on color pairings. Recently, bright neons and pastels have been popular for sportswear. Vintage earth tones like burnt orange, avocado green and mustard yellow have made a comeback too. Stay up to date on exercise apparel color trends and incorporate them into your custom activewear designs.

Visibility and Safety Colors

Visibility is crucial for workwear used in hazardous environments. OSHA has standards on how much high-visibility fluorescent coloring is required for safety clothing. Roadway construction crews often wear bright orange or green for visibility. Firefighters and EMTs wear reflective strips, so they can be seen at night. Don’t forget high-visibility coloring for workwear when needed.

Avoid Clashing Colors

Some color combinations simply don’t look good together and can make workwear designs feel disjointed. Avoid pairing colors next to each other on the color wheel, like red and orange or blue and purple. Stay away from jarring, high-contrast shades side by side. Stick to a simple primary color palette with complementary accents for clean, professional custom workwear.

Test Color Palettes

Once you’ve narrowed down some color options for your branded workwear, order samples to test them out. Colors can appear different on computer screens versus real fabrics. Seeing physical swatches together will give you a better sense of how color palettes interact. Make sure your colors complement each other in person before launching your custom workwear.

Color Meanings Around the Globe

It’s also important to consider the cultural meaning and associations of colors when designing workwear for a global or multicultural workforce. For example, white is associated with death in many Asian cultures, while it signifies purity in Western culture. Red is considered lucky and happy in China, but signifies danger in the US. Do your research to understand what different colors symbolize in the relevant cultures for your organization. Avoid inadvertently offending employees through color choice.

Seasonal Color Options

You may want to develop seasonal color variations for your custom workwear to keep things feeling fresh. Warm oranges, reds and yellows nicely suit workwear for summer and fall seasons. Cool blues, greens and grays better fit the winter and spring. Offering employees color options tied to each season is a nice way to inject variety into your branded workwear.

Choosing the right colors for your custom work wear involves much more than just personal preference. Psychology, branding, safety, trends and complementary schemes all come into play. When designed effectively, your branded workwear colors can boost morale, increase safety, and reinforce your brand image. For help designing the perfect color palette, check out local uniform companies that offer custom scrub uniforms near me.