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People get stuck here for weeks. They open a colour picker, see sixteen million options, and close it again.
Three colours will carry a small business for years. Here is the short version of how to land on them.
Start with what you already have
Your signboard, your shop interior, your packaging, your logo. Something already has a colour, and customers have already seen it. Pull your main colour from there rather than inventing a new one.
If your salon is painted deep green, your main colour is deep green. That is the whole decision.
The three roles
- Main colour. The one people should associate with you. Backgrounds, big shapes, the top of the poster.
- Second colour. Sits next to the main one without fighting it. Usually a darker or lighter version, or a warm neutral like cream or sand.
- Accent. One bright colour used in small amounts. Price tags, “30% OFF” badges, an arrow. If everything is the accent colour, nothing is.
Two rules worth keeping
Text has to be readable. Light grey on white looks elegant on your laptop and vanishes on a phone in daylight. If you have to lean in, the contrast is wrong.
Do not use six colours because six are available. The most professional-looking small business pages usually use fewer colours than the amateur ones, not more.
What about festival colours?
Festivals are the one time it is fine to step outside. Diwali wants warm golds and deep reds, and a strict brand palette can look cold against that. Let the festival colours come in, but keep your logo and your accent in place so the post still reads as yours. There is more on this in festival posts that look like your shop.
Save them once
Once you have three, put them in your brand kit in the app — primary, secondary, accent. Every post generated after that uses them automatically, so your November posts match your March ones without you thinking about it.
This is the part that saves the time. Not choosing good colours once, but never having to choose again.
If you are still setting things up, start with what a brand kit is, or see how Chitra builds a post from one line of description.
More to read
Friendly, professional or bold? Finding your brand voice
Your voice is just how you would talk to a customer standing in front of you. Here is how to work out which one fits your business, with examples of the same offer in each.
Where to put your logo on a social media post
Small, in a corner, in the same corner every time. Here is why that beats a big logo in the middle, and what gets covered up on Instagram.
What is a brand kit, and why your 40th post should look like your first
A brand kit is just your logo, your colours and your tone, saved in one place. Here is what to put in it and why it makes every post look like it came from your shop.