We’ve done a few collabs with brands where they had a very different color scheme than us, and happy to share what happened!
For some background, I work at a nonprofit that has wildly strict brand guidelines, only four colors (and two of those are black and white), only two fonts, and strong guidelines on what imagery, illustrations, and spacing to use. So it’s pretty challenging especially when we work with a brand that is more colorful.
Here are a few ways we’ve found a balance:
- Instead of doing a collaborative post, we each share the content in our own brand guidelines, and just divide up the content for what makes sense. For example, we’re very quantitative data focused, so we’ll share the charts and let the collaborator share the more qualitative quotes and feedback part of the research. We each use our own guidelines, but include the logos of the other and tag each other. This is the most successful option.
- When we do collaborative posts, we try to combine the brands in subtle ways, like adding one of their colors to our scheme and including both logos. For example, adding in a blue stripe to complement our yellow color and show both.
- Sometimes we’ll just agree to go with one brand’s scheme or the other depending on who led it. This is not preferred, but sometimes if we’re a minor partner it makes sense. Usually in these cases I limit where I share the assets so it doesn’t disrupt our feed too much.
As for agreements, I’ve seen the whole gamut. Sometimes it’s agreed to formally in advance, and sometimes its more vibes on the fly. The best ever collab we had was one where we went with option 1 above, and it was very informal. In that case, everyone really trusted the social media folks to do what was best for each of their brands, and posting complementary content within our own brand worked the best.
Happy to share examples and details if its helpful!
