Brand Design
6 issues tagged with this topic.
Color and cultural context: when the same hex means something different
Color carries meaning that is not encoded in its hex value. The same deep red is luck in China, danger in the West, and mourning in South Africa. White is bridal purity in Europe and North America, and funerary color across much of East Asia. These associations are not fixed rules — they are tendencies, shaped by context, industry, audience, and the surrounding design system. International products that ignore cultural color context make small, consistent errors that erode trust with specific audiences without ever surfacing in user research conducted in the home market. This issue is a practical framework for thinking about color beyond the palette.
Color in packaging design: shelf presence, category codes, and tactile expectations
Packaging color operates under constraints that screen design does not. Colors must work at small scale, read from three meters away, render accurately across print processes, and compete against adjacent products simultaneously. Category color codes — blue for dairy, green for natural, black for premium — are powerful context signals that brands violate at their own risk. This issue covers the structural logic of packaging color decisions and when to follow conventions versus when to break them.
Color psychology in marketing: what the research actually shows
Color psychology is one of the most overstated fields in marketing. The commonly cited statistics — "93% of purchase decisions are based on visual appearance" and "color increases brand recognition by 80%" — are misattributed or fabricated. The actual research is more nuanced and more useful than these claims. Color does influence perception, trust, and purchase behavior, but the effects are context-dependent, audience-sensitive, and weaker in isolation than most marketing copy suggests. This issue covers what reliable color psychology research actually shows.
Color naming systems: Pantone, NCS, RAL, and Munsell explained
Physical color naming systems — Pantone, NCS, RAL, and Munsell — exist because digital color values alone cannot guarantee physical reproduction accuracy. A HEX value specifies proportions of RGB light emission; it says nothing about the resulting appearance on a printed substrate, painted wall, or fabric. Each naming system solves a different problem for a different production context. Understanding which system applies to your work prevents expensive reproduction surprises.
Color in email design: HTML constraints, dark mode, and brand consistency
Email HTML is a design environment frozen in the early 2000s. Rendering support across email clients (Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, Yahoo) is fragmented enough that CSS properties available in every modern browser may produce completely different results — or no result at all — in email. Color in email is subject to its own set of constraints, from background-color rendering failures in Outlook to dark mode color inversion in Apple Mail. This issue covers the practical constraints and the workarounds that work across clients.
Color grading for photographers: HSL targeting, LUT design, and editorial consistency
Color grading in photography is the process of adjusting color after exposure and tone corrections are done. It is the step that moves an image from technically correct to editorially intentional. The tools are the same across Lightroom, Capture One, and DaVinci Resolve — HSL (hue, saturation, luminance) targeting, color wheels, and LUT application — but the conceptual framework requires understanding color as a communication choice, not just a technical adjustment. A consistent grading style is one of the strongest differentiators for professional photographers.