Brand colour stays consistent in video when you treat colour as a managed pipeline rather than a paint job at the end: define the brand colours with reference values, work in a known colour space, apply a documented grade or look transform, and check the result on the screens your audience uses. A LUT can carry a brand look between tools, but it cannot fix an unmanaged pipeline or replace a trained eye.
Why video colour drifts
A logo colour that matches perfectly on a website can look different in a video for several reasons:
- The footage came from different cameras with different colour characteristics.
- Each tool in the chain assumes a different colour space.
- Exports are tagged wrongly, so players interpret them differently.
- Viewers watch on screens that vary in brightness, gamut and settings.
- Different editors apply their own grades.
The solution is to reduce these variables you control and to accept that you cannot control the rest.
Step 1: Define the brand colours properly
Start from your brand guidelines, covered in our article on colour palette selection. For video you need more than a hex code on a page. Record:
- The primary and secondary colours as reference values in the colour space your guidelines specify.
- Which colours are for graphics, text, backgrounds and accents.
- Tolerance: how far a colour can shift before it reads as off-brand.
- Neutral and skin-tone behaviour, since the brand look should not make people look unwell.
Be aware that a flat graphic colour and a colour in a graded photographic scene behave differently. A brand blue in a title card should match the reference. The same blue in a lit scene is influenced by light, so the aim there is a consistent feel, not an identical pixel value.
Step 2: Choose a colour-managed pipeline
Colour management means every tool knows what the numbers mean. The Academy Color Encoding System, or ACES, is one widely documented approach. Its documentation describes a framework for managing colour across motion picture and television production, centred on a standardised, scene-referred encoding. Footage from different cameras is converted into a common encoding using input transforms, and output transforms then prepare the image for different displays. The result, according to the documentation, is a shared colour foundation that lets the same material be reviewed and delivered to HDR, SDR or cinema outputs.
Not every project needs ACES. Smaller productions often use a simpler managed approach: a defined working space, correct conversions for each camera, and a standard delivery space. What matters is that the choice is deliberate and written down so every person and tool follows it.
Step 3: Understand what a LUT is and is not
A look-up table (LUT) is a stored colour transformation that maps input colours to output colours. Two uses are often confused:
| Use | Purpose | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Technical conversion LUT | Converts between spaces, such as camera log to a display space | Must match the footage and the target |
| Creative or look LUT | Applies a stylistic grade, such as a brand look | Built for a specific input space and only behaves as designed there |
A creative LUT applied to footage in the wrong colour space gives a different result than intended. That is the most common reason a “brand LUT” works for one editor and fails for another. Document the input space for every LUT you issue, name files clearly and version them.
LUTs also have limits. They apply a fixed transformation, so they cannot adapt to a shot with unusual exposure, mixed lighting or a clipped sky. Treat a LUT as a starting point for a grade, then adjust shot by shot.
Step 4: Build a brand look as a look transform
In ACES terminology, creative adjustments are made with Look Transforms. According to the ACES documentation, these apply technical or creative adjustments to scene-referred data. For grading, the documentation describes ACEScct as a quasi-logarithmic encoding designed for colour grading systems, and notes it is meant to be internal to software or hardware systems rather than for interchange or archiving.
You do not need the details to apply the principle. Define the brand look once, test it across representative footage (bright, dark, skin tones, saturated products), then lock it and distribute it with instructions. Consider the look as three layers:
- Technical correction: exposure, white balance and matching between cameras.
- Brand look: the repeatable stylistic grade, such as warmth, contrast and saturation behaviour.
- Shot-specific adjustment: corrections that keep each shot within tolerance.
Step 5: Keep motion graphics and footage in step
Animated titles, lower thirds and logos are built in software with its own colour settings. To keep them matched to graded footage:
- Use the same working and delivery colour space in the motion graphics tool and the editing or grading tool.
- Check that brand colours in graphics do not shift when composited over footage or when a grade is applied on top. Decide whether graphics sit above or below the grade, and keep that rule consistent.
- Test text and logo legibility against the grade, not only against a flat background.
- Keep gradients and glows within safe limits to avoid banding after compression.
Our article on motion design basics covers the movement side of brand consistency.
Step 6: Check across screens
Review on a calibrated display where you can, and also on typical phones, laptops and televisions, because that is where audiences watch. Compare against a still of the brand colours. If a colour is very close to the edge of what screens can show, expect more variation between devices, so choose tolerances accordingly.
AI-generated footage
If a project uses AI-generated or AI-assisted video, colour behaviour can vary between shots and between generations. The same discipline applies: grade each shot into the brand look, check skin tones and avoid assuming consistency. See consistent visual identity across channels for the wider principle.
A colour approval checklist
- Brand colour reference values and tolerances are documented.
- Working and delivery colour spaces are named in the brief.
- Every LUT has a documented input space and version.
- A test sequence covers bright, dark, skin and brand-colour shots.
- Graphics and footage are checked together, not separately.
- The final export is tagged correctly and reviewed on several devices.
- One person holds sign-off for brand colour.
Honest limits
No process makes a colour look identical on every screen. Viewers’ devices, settings and lighting differ. A managed pipeline reduces avoidable differences and gives you a defensible reference, which is as much as most productions can claim.
Where Radiance Impact fits
Radiance Impact’s Studio covers brand films, short-form and social video, post-production and animation. If you want brand colour planned into a video project from the start, contact us or visit the Studio page.
Sources
- ACES System overview, ACES Documentation (ACESCentral)
- ACEScct specification, ACES Documentation (ACESCentral)
