19 October 2026
Why so many brands are blue
Nearly a third of the logos on MisterLogo are blue. Here's why so many companies land on the same colour, and why the usual explanation only tells half the story.
Of the 4,225 logos on MisterLogo, 1,279 are blue. That's roughly one in three, and more than red and green put together. Scroll through the blue logos and it can start to feel like every company in the world signed up to the same paint supplier.
They didn't, of course. But the reasons they ended up in the same place are worth knowing, especially if you're about to choose a colour yourself.
The explanation you've heard before
Ask most people why brands choose blue and you'll hear that it signals trust, calm and reliability. Banks, insurers, airlines and social networks all want you to trust them, so they reach for blue. PayPal, Visa, LinkedIn, Facebook, IBM and Intel all fit the pattern neatly.
There's something in it. Blue is consistently one of the most liked colours in surveys, across many countries, and it rarely provokes a strong negative reaction. For a company that wants to offend nobody, that's appealing.
But the research on colour and emotion is shakier than marketing slides suggest. How a colour feels depends heavily on the shade, the context and the culture. A dark navy feels like a bank; an electric blue feels like a nightclub. "Blue means trust" is a tidy summary of a much messier picture.
The reasons nobody puts on a slide
The less romantic reasons are probably just as important.
- Blue behaves well on screens. It holds up in both light and dark interfaces, and it doesn't vibrate against white the way pure red can.
- Blue is a safe pair for text. Blue links have been the web's default for decades, so blue already reads as "click here" without anyone having to learn it.
- Blue rarely clashes. It sits comfortably next to photography, other brands' logos and most of a website's interface. That matters when your logo will appear in app stores and partner pages you don't control.
- Nobody gets fired for choosing blue. When a logo is signed off by a committee, the colour least likely to cause an argument often wins.
The problem with blending in
If everyone in your sector is blue, being blue tells customers very little. That's the trap. A colour chosen because it feels safe can end up making a brand invisible in exactly the places it needs to stand out: a search result, a row of app icons, a supermarket shelf.
It's no accident that some of the most recognisable newer brands went the other way. Spotify's bright green is instantly picked out on a crowded home screen. Airbnb chose a warm coral while many travel sites leaned towards blue. Neither colour is "better" than blue; they're just different from the neighbours.
Choosing a colour for your own brand
If you're working on a new identity, a few practical questions do more good than any colour-psychology chart:
- What colours do your nearest competitors use? Line their logos up side by side and look for the gap.
- Where will the logo mostly appear? A colour that works on a website might struggle on a dark app screen or a printed sign.
- Does it still work in one colour? Your logo will often be shown in plain black or white, so the shape has to carry it.
- Can you own a specific shade? If you do go blue, a distinctive blue is far more useful than a generic one.
You can compare any colour family on MisterLogo using the filters on the homepage, or type a hex code into the search box to see every brand that uses it. It's a quick, slightly humbling way to find out how original your "unique" colour really is.
