Your Home Inspection Company Logo: Color Choices

by Levi Nelson, InterNACHI® Member Marketing Design Team

The colors you use in your logo should always be driven by your audience. A question you should always be asking is: “What is my logo communicating to the people I want to hire me?" This is a different question than “Do I think these colors are cool?” While both answers can inform the choices for your logo, the first question will always be the most important.  

The most saturated, bright color is not always the best color. The reason that warning signs use bright, aggressive colors is to get our attention and warn us of important information. However, a professional home inspector is most often trying to communicate calm, professional authority. Another way to think about it would be to say the aggressive colors of a warning sign are loud, but nobody wants to have a conversation with someone who only shouts. While a very bright red might get attention, it can also suggest caution. The human heart rate increases at the sight of red, and it decreases slightly in response to the colors blue and green. 

Where you live and the image in your logo can also play a role in shaping how people perceive color, so while this information is helpful, it can always change. For example, a red-orange logo would make sense if your image were a fox.

The other way that bright colors can cause problems is because the color falls outside of a printable range. A logo within a printable range needs to be set up in CMYK colors, which are going to be more muted. The colors you see on a monitor are RGB colors. They can be extremely bright because light is projected behind the color. It is better to choose a slightly more muted color so that the color of the logo on the screen and the color of your logo on your business card more closely match each other. The more consistent your colors are, the more they will help you establish your brand. This is the reason I recommend picking a specific set of colors for your logo and sticking to them throughout your marketing. The longer your logo is around and remains consistent, the more people will recognize your company. If you are doing great work, you want people to associate your logo with the quality of your work. 

When I set up a logo design, I also provide a white version and a black version of the logo. The reason I do this is because a single-color logo can save money in some forms of print and will help you to sidestep issues where the color of your logo does not work well for the background color you would like to place your logo on. For example, maybe your logo is blue, but you would like for your company shirt to be blue. If you have a white version of the logo, the contrast between the blue of the shirt and the white of the logo will ensure that your logo remains clear and legible.

When we are working with you on your logo, we can provide more feedback throughout the process and help you to make informed decisions about how to build a logo that will work well for the years ahead.

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