Landscape Branding 101 – The Color Guide For Every Business Aspect!
As the experts define it, a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company.
When chosen and implemented effectively, colors can differentiate, motivate and elevate a business. Landscape branding is no exception to that rule. If a landscaping service has already achieved a status of a brand or is on its way to do so, there are a few things they need to set straight.
- Create personalization and focus on customer experience
- Create differentiation with brand identity
- Make the brand pop
If you are a startup working in lawn care and landscape business, you need to be certain about why you are choosing a particular set of colors. This requires a clear understanding of color standards in graphic design. Besides that consideration, colors also tend to have some general influences and some cultural implications and the later can vary among the different American States. But first let’s consider the general color influences. According to Faber Birren, the author of Color Psychology and Color Therapy.
- Bright colors promote physical activity, but make the passage of time seem slower.
- Cooler and softer colors are better for mental activity, and make the time seem to fly by.
Can you relate to this finding? Isn’t this how we feel around stunning landscapes? Some entities work hard to own a color and make it a core element of their brand. Are landscaping brands struggling to achieve that distinction?
Moving on to the cultural implications of color, let me start by saying that colors mean different things in different cultures. Could this imply that landscape color palettes can also be a reflection of the local culture your audience belongs to? Since culture is an external factor influencing the choice of color for a brand, we will focus more on internal aspects of landscaping brand design.
Urban legends and landscaping colors
Contrarily to popular belief the color palettes other than the cool color palettes can make it to this industry. However, when we browse to learn the color palettes of landscaping websites, we can see limited colors taken mostly from the cooler spectrum. Those colors convey the brand message but fails to connect with the local user who might be interested in getting their service. The first rule of thumb is to make informed color choices after referring current sources and trends. Second visualize how your prospects will consider a service like yourself.
The graphic design blueprint for landscaping
From science to consumer psychology, there is a lot that goes into the selection of colors. However, when we have to think about the graphic identity, the most important factor about color is to know the right time to take decisions about it. Even if a designer has a temptation to jump to the color choice earlier during the process, he/she must resist it. Obviously, the color treatments in landscape branding can make or break your identity. Inappropriate, redundant, and illegible color choices can drag down even the most carefully drawn mark.
Logo design
Whether you want a corporate logo with a symbol or a word mark to represent your brand, the choice of colors will remain a crucial decision. A memorable logo can help you win the hearts and minds of the consumers while a snappy one makes them recall your brand efficiently. So if a landscape company logo has these two elements, it can create differentiation.
Website design
Web presence is considered a central element for landscape, lawn care service provider. It is an excellent opportunity to display all the completed landscape projects with beautiful imagery. Most local landscape designers create an impression with fast loading websites, friendly navigation and easy to access contact details. However when it comes to color selection for the brand, the choices often seem redundant. You will notice a pattern in the color palettes of landscaping websites. The color palettes are usually derived from the cooler side of the spectrum and fails to provide differentiation.
Packaging design
Both the domestic and commercial landscape service providers don’t offer any products for purchase but their frequently used tools can be branded. It is not necessary to place a logo on everything. They can chose brand identity colors and paint their mowing, trimming, pruning and other instruments with those brand colors.
Vehicle design
Whether its digital or print ad design, the brands need to stick to the core brand colors. The brand identity elements such as the layout, colors, and prior selected fonts presents opportunities as well as certain limitations. However some landscape brands promote their business in subtle ways. They use vehicle graphics to spread the word. It is an amazing opportunity to create differentiation. With ample text and professional visuals, landscape companies have leveraged vehicle branding. However, its potential is still not fully explored.
Poster/annual reports
Annual reports are not the most frequently designed but when they are circulated across stakeholders and financers, they need to display a touch of professionalism. This involves various other considerations from file selection to the type of content but above all design plays a key role. Try adding hue and saturation to the natural dimensions of colors that you have selected
Conclusion
Interestingly a majority if not all Landscape and lawn care service providers focus on one or more of the above mentioned elements. This limits the scope of differentiation irrespective of the brand story, colors, unique ideas you have incorporated. Landscape companies can win over clients with visuals and graphic design tactics but create a lasting impression by staying connected with them. A budding aspect is the use of mobile applications to keep the customer engaged. Have you created an app yet?
