A minimalist composition of various maroon and complementary color swatches and fabric textures.

What the Color Maroon Taught Me About Selling

Published on June 23, 2025 • 5 min read

For weeks, the project was adrift. I was designing a brand identity for a new line of artisanal leather goods—wallets, belts, and bags meant to last a lifetime. The client's brief was full of evocative words: "heritage," "craftsmanship," "quiet confidence." But my mood boards were a sea of predictable browns and blacks. The work was competent, but it had no soul. It felt like a memory of someone else's brand.

The breakthrough didn't happen in front of a screen. It happened on a walk through an old part of the city, where I saw a vintage armchair in the window of an antique shop. It was upholstered in a deep, rich maroon velvet. It wasn't just a color; it was a feeling. It spoke of warmth, of history, of something valuable and well-loved. It was the entire brand story, contained in a single hue.

From a Feeling to a Framework

I rushed back to my studio, my mind buzzing. I had the anchor, the emotional core. But how do you build a world around a single color? A brand needs more than one note to sing. It needs a supporting cast of colors that create harmony, contrast, and visual rhythm. My initial attempts felt clumsy—I was just guessing, picking shades that seemed to fit.

This is where intuition needs a tool. I didn't need a complex design suite; I needed something to translate a feeling into a functional system. I opened a free color palette generator and uploaded a photo I had snapped of the armchair. In an instant, the algorithm did what I had struggled to do for hours. It extracted the core maroon and then generated a series of complementary colors: a soft cream, a muted gold, a deep charcoal grey, and a subtle olive green.

"Creativity is not about inventing from nothing. It is about seeing the connections between things. The right tool simply makes those connections visible."

The Language of Color

Suddenly, I had a language. The maroon was the hero, the color of the leather itself. The cream was the canvas for the website's background, clean and elegant. The gold was for the accents, the hardware, the subtle glint of a logo. The charcoal was for the typography, strong and legible. The olive was for secondary elements, a surprising touch that added depth and sophistication.

The brand wasn't just a color anymore; it was a conversation. The palette gave me the structure I needed to build out the entire identity—the website, the packaging, the social media graphics. The work began to flow effortlessly. The client saw the final presentation and said, "That's it. That's us."

This wasn't just about finding the right colors. It was about understanding that sometimes, the most complex creative problems are unlocked by the simplest of instruments. The tool didn't give me the idea, but it gave my idea a voice. It translated a fleeting moment of inspiration into a tangible, professional reality. And that, I've learned, is what selling really is: the art of making a feeling understood.

From a Feeling to a Framework

The Language of Color

You Might Also Like

Turn Boring Tasks into Fun: 10 Mini Tools to Make Work Feel Lighter

Notes to Myself at 2:12 a.m. on a Monday

10 BeginThings Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed