I was going to suggest using BaseStyle as in 
Plot[x, {x, 1, 3}, AxesLabel -> ({"LabelA", "LabelB"}), 
 BaseStyle -> 
  Directive @@ {FontFamily -> "Helvetica", 12, Italic, 
    FontColor -> Red}]
which would also color the text in font used on the ticks.  However they could be separately set as in 
Plot[x, {x, 1, 3}, AxesLabel -> ({"LabelA", "LabelB"}), 
 BaseStyle -> 
  Directive @@ {FontFamily -> "Helvetica", 16, Italic, 
    FontColor -> Red},
 TicksStyle -> 
  Directive @@ {FontFamily -> "Helvetica", 10, FontColor -> Black}]
However, if you are using Mathematica 10, you will see that the color of the Labels is not Red.  This is a bug...and it worked in Mathematica 9.   I filed a bug report.  It turns out that it is a known bug.  Hopefully it will get fixed in a later version of Mathematica.