The Colour Brown
Brown is down-home, persistent and solid, but also warm and cuddly. We often associate brown with tasty, aromatic coffee, freshly baked bread or sweet, sweet chocolate.
Colours | Red | Blue | Green | Yellow | Orange | Pink | Purple | Brown | Grey | White | Black
But there are also negative associations, like stupidity, a slow mind, dirt or humiliation. Often it just depends on context or the exact hue, since brown nuances cover a very wide spectrum and each tone can awaken different feelings.
Brown is a tertiary colour, composed mostly of darkened yellow, sometimes red hues, mixed with some green. Many colours - once combined - result in a brown tone. That´s why the color brown covers a good part of the visible (subtractive) spectrum.
Brown as design color
Brown is in a quite bad position in the list of favourite colors. I remember when I was in kindergarten, I picked brown as favourite color - but just because I did not have to share it with others.
Apart from that, we can trigger some lovely, down-to-earth emotions using good color combinations involving brown. Imagine brown-white, brown-gold, brown-blue-gold... Come to think of it, if you add gold to brown, it indicates high quality, but still cozy at the same time. No other combination works like this. A bit tricky though, because the use of gold in digital media design is limited.
In our case, the color brown indicates sustainable packaging. Now as a matter of fact, we follow a "green" packaging strategy at Avanova.
Yet, if you manage to pick the right nuance and combination, you can express all the positive aspects. Aromatic, spicy, cuddly, fertility - woody (no dreadful tin sort of things).
Brown also can be used to turn sterile, cold white into a pleasing creamy white hue. Even more and it will be beige.
- The color brown is steadfast, aromatic, fragrant and sweet
- It refers to mud, dirt and the fertile soil
- Coffee, chocolate, crispy bread
- Wood and woody colors make the home a warm and cozy place (in perfect contrast to white, that's how I love my home)
- Often brown refers to poverty, because dyes were quite expensive in medieval times. Cowls of the Franciscan monks for example were homespun, brownish and simple.
- Brown is ranking quite low on the list of favorite colors
- Yet brown covers pretty much of the (subtractive) spectrum, for most warm colors turn brown when darkened or mixed
- Brown is the classic camouflage color in the animal kingdom
- Horn jewellery is of course mostly coloured brown
Colors and their meaning - overview
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