Why Color Psychology Is Nonsens (and Dangerous for Branding)

Blindly following color psychology in branding can lead to bad decisions, missed opportunities, and indistinguishable visual identities.

10.09.2025 BY Emily Portrait of Emily

Why Color Psychology Is Nonsens (and Dangerous for Branding) header image

Introduction

What’s Wrong With the Logic? ↓ The Real Risk: Branding Convergence ↓ Missed Opportunities ↓ 🎯 What Actually Works ↓ 🚨 Color Is a Tool, Not a Spell ↓ Summary ↓

🎨 The Problem With “Color Psychology”

You’ve probably heard statements like:

“Blue builds trust.”
“Red is aggressive.”
“Green means eco-friendly.”

These clichés are everywhere — in marketing decks, branding pitches, blog posts. But here’s the truth: color psychology as used in branding is mostly pseudoscience.

It’s not that color doesn’t matter. It’s that the way people interpret color is too complex, contextual, and culturally loaded to reduce to a simple emotional trigger chart.

color psychology in branding as pseudoscience

What’s Wrong With the Logic?

Color psychology assumes:

Red = passion, danger, energy
Blue = calm, trust, finance
Yellow = happiness
Black = luxury or evil

But human perception isn’t a science experiment in a vacuum. Color meaning depends on:

Culture (white = purity in the West, mourning in the East)
Context (red in food = appetite; red in finance = loss)
Surroundings (your red may read pink on a white screen, brown on black)
Branding history (Coca-Cola is red, and it works)

The Real Risk: Branding Convergence

Here’s the real branding problem: You want to launch a financial startup. A brand consultant tells you, “Don’t use red — it’s aggressive. Use blue — it’s trustworthy.”

Guess what? Everyone else did the same.

Now:

You blend in with all the other fintechs.
You lose your visual distinctiveness.
You miss the chance to own a bold position.

Brands shouldn’t avoid color because of superstition. They should use it strategically to stand out and tell their own story.

Missed Opportunities

Some brands could have taken a bolder approach — but didn’t:

A mental health brand avoiding yellow because it’s “too playful”
A startup skipping green because “others already did”
An energy drink choosing gray (!) because it felt “serious”

All because someone heard that a certain color “means something.”

🎯 What Actually Works

Instead of asking “what color means trust?” ask:

What emotion do we want to evoke — and how does our audience feel about that color?
What colors are our competitors using, and how can we be different?
What real-world tests can we do with color palettes?
What lighting, media, and material will it show up on?

Use color as part of your brand system, not as a universal law.

some brands could have a bolder approach

🚨 Color Is a Tool, Not a Spell

Yes, colors evoke feelings. But they don’t do it in isolation — and not consistently. Believing there’s a “right” color for every brand is like believing there’s a “right” font for every personality. It’s lazy thinking disguised as science.

You should:

Test combinations
Consider brand voice and tone
Study your competitors
Think across digital, print, signage, and motion

Color psychology should inspire questions — not dictate answers.

Don’t forget: Our chefs at rausr are still here to help you with this.

Summary

Color psychology in branding isn’t real science — it’s vague advice built on broad generalizations. Designers and marketers should stop chasing “safe” colors and start creating bold, thoughtful, strategic visual identities.

“Don’t let a bad interpretation of color keep you from making something iconic. Your brand deserves better than blue-by-default.”

Sources:

smashingmagazine.com uxdesign.cc interaction-design.org nngroup.com

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