Colors in Corporate Branding and Design

From Smashing Magazine, Colors in Corporate Branding and Design looks at the websites of several major companies including Bank of America, Ford, Best Buy, Coca Cola, and Target with an eye on the use of color and branding -- good and not so good. There's really a limited color palette here. Lots of red and blue (and red, white, & blue), a couple of browns (the Hershey site makes me crave chocolate), a couple of oranges. T-Mobile stands out a bit with a few doses of hot pink. After analyzing each site's use of their corporate colors and logo on the site the author offers 4 lessons that designers can apply to their own work, even if they don't do sites for companies as well-known as Pepsi, Walmart, or ING.