"What can brown do for you?" - UPS tagline
Companies spend millions each year in marketing and advertising to "own" a color which in turn becomes extremely valuable in name and brand recognition. Think of Tiffany blue or Starbucks green or UPS brown. (The actual brown color for UPS is called Pullman Brown)
As the color of the earth the color Brown literally grounds us. People who wear brown come across as dependable, sincere, hard working and trustworthy. When you see your local UPS guy coming up to deliver a package in a brown uniform he looks as humble and non threatening as a little kitten - a kitten in a real big hurry that is.
"I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns." - Winston Churchill
The notion goes back to historic times, when bright colors were reserved for royalty and the wealthy, relegating the brown color to peasants.
Brown has a common feel and a sense of humility. It's ironic to see luxury brands adopting the color brown in their packaging - Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Henry Beguilin to name a few. I personally love the chocolate brown packaging pared with red or powder blue.
In interior design, brown is considered the great leveler, grounding all the other colors. Pale neutrals make a room feel larger and less cluttered, while darker browns create a sense of coziness and security.
A little more about the color Brown:
- Paper bag Brown is used to suggest the freshness of food
- Brown has a masculine, rugged quality appealing mostly to men
- In India, Brown is the color of mourning because it resembles dying leaves
Excerpts taken from The Complete Color Harmony, by Tina Sutton and Bride M Whelan, Rockport Publishers
