Your last paragraph’s first line is golden. It is indeed the entire brand relationship that contributes to making a brand successful. When I discuss focusing a corporate brand, and we are trying hard to differentiate, colour is one aspect we pay close attention to. Because colour can be a powerful icon from many levels including psychology, mythology, symbolism and differentiation.

To me a great logo hits it’s target audience in the gut. It can make them think a certain way about the brand. How it is designed can give the impression of many things. Sometimes I ask, ” how old do want to look?” Sometimes you might want to give the impression of a stable well-established firm. (law firms for example) Try to instill a sense of trust from the impression. Your image is the first exposure a prospective customer has when confronted with your brand initially. So, you have to take every consideration to make sure you hit the mark emotionally. If the colour palette differentiates, if the design hits the sweet spot, if the name inspires - I believe you have a better chance of delivering the rest of the brand message to the customer. If the company doesn’t live up to expectations after the door is opened then other brand issues are at fault.

It’s like they say: great advertising can get then them to try a product once. If it’s a bad product, no amount of good advertising is going to get them to purchase it a second time.

This is a nice colour discussion, although you have more rules than I. One thing I’ve learned after many years in the graphic design industry is that you should try to have an open mind when it comes to coour trends. What is important is that colour palettes should coordinate and not clash. There are reasons for dark or light backgrounds or any use of colour for that matter. They usually have something todo with that gut reaction I alluded to earlier.

And I am sure you know thousands of brands that have blue logos and lead! Let’s see: Philips, SIEMENS, NIVEA (white type font on blue background), Ericsson (not the new Sony Ericsson), VISA, Pfizer, Volkswagen, IBM, Intel, BMW, Ford, Pepsi (main blue plus a touch of white and red!), SUN Microsystems, AT&T, Levi’s, Wal-Mart, HBO, Absolut Vodka, AC Nielsen, Accor, ADT Security, The Brink’s Company, AlltheWeb, Allianz, American Express, Fanta, Fiat, GE (General Electric), Geico, Hilton, HP, MSN, NATO, Rheinmetall (Defence Electronics), Thales (Security Solutions), Olympus, Panasonic, Pelikan, Peugeot, Samsung, SEARS, etc.

If I take a look at these companies, one thing is clear: it’s not the color of the logo that makes them famous, but their (respected) promises of quality, tradition, unfailing service, corporate values and standards. While a logo matters for brand’s recognizability, it cannot determine the public trust the brand on its own. There are other factors businesses have to consider to succeed. The logo is just one link in the chain. I am sure that if you offer a great service you will lead, no matter what colors you use for your logo. The logo is just a symbol that will help you promote your business. And if you take it alone, no matter how great that logo is, no matter how cool and out of the ordinary its design might be, what’s its use if you have nothing that satisfies your customers?

I thought the comment about the popularity of the colour’s use in logos spot on. For example during a colour analysis we did of the tool and die industry, 74% of the logos were blue. This fact only told me, what colour to stay away from, as we use differentiation as a strategy - we prefer to lead than follow.

I’ve already noticed an impact from the new design - just in the past 2 weeks the average page view has doubled!