Brand colours for a small business: how to choose a palette that works

You are about to paint the shop board, print bags and set up your Instagram page, and someone asks: “What are your brand colours?” You like blue. Your brother says red sells. A website says green means trust.

This guide shows a simple way to choose brand colours for a small business: how many you need, how to pick them, how to check that text stays readable (with the actual numbers), and why the colour meaning charts online are best taken lightly.

How many brand colours do you need?

Four is enough for almost every small business:

Role	What it does	Example
Main colour	Your signboard, logo and the colour people remember	Deep green
Accent	Buttons, prices, “offer” tags; used little	Warm yellow
Dark neutral	Text	Near-black
Light neutral	Backgrounds	Off-white

More colours make everything harder: posters start to look different from bags, and staff pick whatever is at hand.

One main colour people remember, one accent for the important bits, and two quiet colours for everything else.

Try it

Open 8 am to 10 pmKarthik Medicals10% off on Sundays

Background

Deep blueOff-whiteCross greenNear-blackWhiteLight green

Text

Deep blueOff-whiteCross greenNear-blackWhiteLight green

10.36 : 1Passes for all text

60% · main

30% · second

10% · accent

How to choose brand colours, step by step

1. Look at your street. Note the colours of the five or ten shops nearest you, and of your competitors online. If every medical shop nearby is green and white, a different main colour helps you stand out.
2. Pick the main colour that fits how you want to be seen and that you can live with for years. Try it on a quick board mock-up and on a phone screen, not as a tiny swatch.
3. Pick the accent with clear contrast to the main colour. A warm accent (yellow, orange) with a cool main colour (blue, green) is an easy pair.
4. Pick the neutrals. A near-black for text and an off-white or light grey for backgrounds.
5. Check the contrast (next section), and adjust shades until text passes.
6. Write the codes down. Save each colour’s HEX code (like #1E7B34) and, for printing, ask your press for the matching print colour. In Canva, a Brand Kit holds your colours (the free plan keeps one palette of up to three colours, so save your main, accent and dark text colour there).

Contrast: the rule that keeps your colours readable

The most common colour mistake is not an ugly colour. It is text nobody can read: white on yellow, light grey on white, red on green.

There is a real measure for this. The web accessibility standard WCAG 2.2 (from W3C) sets contrast ratios between text and its background, from 1:1 (same colour) to 21:1 (black on white):

The rule was written for websites, but it works just as well for signboards, menus and Instagram posts. Here are some real pairs, worked out with the WCAG formula:

Text on background	Contrast	Good for
White on bright yellow #FFC800	1.55:1	Nothing: too faint
Black on bright yellow #FFC800	13.51:1	Any text
White on bright green #43A047	3.30:1	Large text only
White on deep green #2E7D32	5.13:1	Any text
White on orange #F57C00	2.70:1	Nothing: too faint
Black on orange #F57C00	7.77:1	Any text
Grey #777777 on white	4.48:1	Just fails for normal text

The lesson: bright yellows and oranges need black text, and many bright greens and reds need a slightly deeper shade before white text works. Free contrast checkers online (search “WCAG contrast checker”) give you the number when you type two HEX codes.

Never use colour alone to say something, like “red price = sale”. About 1 in 12 men have a colour vision deficiency, most often with red and green. Add a word or a symbol too.

Try it

AaWhite on deep blue10.36 : 1Passes

AaWhite on light green1.40 : 1Fails

AaNear-black on light green12.40 : 1Passes

Try your own coloursTextBackground

Aa10.36 : 1Passes

Colour meaning: useful, but not a rule

You will find charts that say blue means trust, red means hunger, green means health. Take them lightly. A large study of 4,598 people in 30 countries (Jonauskaite and others, 2020) found that colour and feeling links are broadly shared, but they still differ by country, language and region. And your customers’ own memories matter more than any chart: festival colours, a rival’s board, a political party’s flag, a temple, a team.

So ask practical questions instead:

• Does it look right for what you sell to people on your street?
• Is it different from your nearest competitor?
• Does it carry a meaning locally you don’t want (a party colour, a funeral colour)?
• Will it print well and stay bright on a sunny board?

A worked example: Karthik’s medical shop in Villupuram

Karthik opened a medical shop in Villupuram. Nearly every pharmacy on his road used green and white, so green alone would make him blend in. He chose deep blue as his main colour, kept a green cross as a small accent (customers look for it), and used near-black text on off-white for price labels.

He checked his pairs before printing. White on his deep blue passed easily. His first “offer” tags were white on a light green, which failed; he switched to near-black on the light green, which passed. He saved the four HEX codes in his phone notes, put three of them in Canva’s free Brand Kit, and gave the same list to the board painter. His logo and posts now match; see our guides on designing a logo and Instagram post design.

Using your colours everywhere

Once chosen, the trick is to keep them the same everywhere. Use the main colour big and often (board, logo, page header), the accent rarely (one offer tag, one button), and the neutrals for everything else. On posters and flyers the same contrast rules apply; our poster and flyer guide shows the rest. When your website is built, give the designer the same four HEX codes, so the screen matches the shop.

Questions

How do I choose colours for my brand?

Pick one main colour that fits your business and stands apart from nearby competitors, one accent for offers and buttons, and two neutrals for text and backgrounds. Then check that text on each background reaches at least 4.5:1 contrast, and adjust shades until it does.

How many brand colours should a small business have?

Four is enough: a main colour, an accent and two neutrals. More colours make your posters, bags and posts drift apart and look less like one shop.

What colours go together for a brand?

A cool main colour with a warm accent is an easy pair, like deep blue with yellow or deep green with orange. Whatever you choose, test the text: bright yellow and orange need black text, not white.

Do colours really affect what customers feel?

Partly. Research across 30 countries found shared links between colours and feelings, but they also differ by country and language. Local meaning, your competitors’ colours and readability matter more than a general meaning chart.

What is a good contrast ratio for text?

At least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, icons and buttons, from the WCAG 2.2 standard. Black on white is 21:1; white on bright yellow is only 1.55:1.

How do I set brand colours in Canva?

Open Brand, choose your Brand Kit and add your colours by HEX code, so they are ready in every design. The free plan keeps one palette of up to three colours; paid plans allow more. Use the same codes when you give files to a printer or a website designer.

Should my brand colours match my logo?

Yes. The main colour usually comes from the logo, and the logo should also work in plain black and plain white for places where colour isn’t possible.