Here are some free tools that you can use to come up with your brand identity first let's figure out
what colors we're going to use.
If you already have a color that you're passionate about that might be the best way to start out.
But if you have no idea for what color you like or any sort of color palette design seeds is a great
Web site to start out with.
I love just browsing on this Web site.
It's actually designed Dasch seeds dot com.
I'm going to include links to all these tools in the next lesson so you can easily get to them.
Basically you can go on here.
I like just going up to the blog and kind of scrolling through what they do is they find images and
then they take colors from those images and come up with a color palette.
Now you might not know exactly how to use these color palettes in programs like Adobe Photoshop but
these hex codes these code color codes down here underneath the colors are very important because you'll
be using them like in the programs Photoshop but also when you're building your website you're going
to find lots of times where you have to actually plug in this code so you'll want to save that code
when you have a color that you want.
So design seed's is a great way to get inspiration and maybe there's a color palette that you end up
liking having one main color is a good idea because people can identify your brand with that color.
But then having supplemental colors helps you change it up because you don't always want to be posting
photos and graphics with just one color.
It's better to have a few and if they compliment each other and look good that's even better.
You don't want to just pick random colors.
This is one way to kind of pick random colors together from photos or they look good but there's other
ways to find more of the same tific he get color palette peloton is one Web site.
And when you log on you are just open the web site.
This is what you'll see.
You can move this color around over here if you want or if you have a single color code that you like
you can type it in here and the base color.
So I have my base color which is this teal color and then with palette on what you can do is change
the complementary colors.
So here it's complementing it with shades.
So you have these lighter shades darker shades but if you click these little dials up here you get different
types of complementary colors adjacent colors try triad tetrad.
If you want four and then you can save this by doing share palette or export.
So this is one way to get quickly scientific colors that complement each other colors or colors SEO
arest does SEO is how I came up with my color palette for videos online.
If you click generate appear at the top what you can do is just sort of scroll through different pots.
So you press the spacebar to create a new generate new palette but what happens is if you do have that
single color that you have already to start out with or if you like one of these you can lock it in
place and then scroll through more options.
So for example if I go down here and edit it and turn it into my Teall option and then I click lock
and then I press spacebar it will scroll through different colors colors except for that one that I've
locked.
So what I basically did was I sat here I did this I scrolled through some and then say OK I was like
OK why I actually kind of like this one.
That kind of matches the style so I'll lock it and then I would go through again pressing SPACE BAR
looking for maybe something that's a little bit more orange or something.
This is close but it's a little too sort of saturated.
I want a little bit more gray.
So what I can do is adjust so I can take this you can adjust the saturation down a little bit to get
more of the tone that I'm looking at.
I can make it darker brighter etc..
So let's just make it a little darker a little less saturated.
Ok cool.
Then I can lock it so you can kind of do that and keep doing it and then export it or save it and I
use this all the time I have my colors that I use five colors and all my graphics now.
So that's colors What about photos.
Photos are a big part of any brand and if you're not a photographer and if you don't have a budget to
shoot photos for your brand you're going to be trying to find photos online.
There are great Web sites that you can purchase stock photos from.
But what about some good high quality free photos.
There are three web sites I want to mention one is on Splash dot com.
The next is pectorals dot com.
And the next is pics of Bay dot com.
And don't worry I'm going to include links to all these in the next lesson so you can easily get to
them as you can see automatically when you go on these Web sites.
The quality of the photo is super high.
Now the catalog isn't huge but for most companies for most brands you'll find some super duper high
quality photos.
So for example for me I'm do a lot of video production kind of things.
So when I type in video I get a lot of cool stuff.
People can cameras individual cameras and these while I would like to go out and shoot photos myself
sometimes it's just easier to find photos for free.
Sometimes the photos are the same on each of these sites.
Sometimes I'll see the photos that are on these sites on multiple Web sites because a lot of people
end up using these Web sites.
So be aware of that.
Try to use photos that aren't too cliche.
There's some when you see them be like ok that's been used a million times probably already but use
them as you see fit.
All of these Web sites it's free to use for commercial or noncommercial uses.
Lastly fonts you have all your traditional fonts probably on your computer but maybe you want to find
a font that's more unique for your brand.
A couple Web sites are done Fonte dot com a font dot com and so for squirrel dot com font squirrel dot
com.
All of these should be free to use fonts for commercial purposes with duff on dot com.
When you find a font you have to make sure that it says free for personal use and it will say over here
on the right hand side you can search by styluses say you're looking for something that's a little eroded
look or something like that.
You can see all these eroded looks.
You can even type in your tot your brand say you trying to come up with a logo or something.
So say you do video school online.
I can see what these would look like in videos online.
Super cool videos go online and I could even search by free for commercial use.
So 100 percent free.
That's what I would select.
Not just free for personal use.
And here are the ones that are free for personal and commercial use Phonse squirrels the same thing
but all of them should be 100 percent free for commercial use.
Remember though Simplicity is the key with brand graphics.
It's more timeless.
So don't to go too crazy with a font.
I'll bet that if you pick something that's a little too creative that a year or two down the road you're
going to be wishing that you picked something a little bit more clean.
Thanks so much.
I hope you enjoyed these resources and we'll see in the next lesson.