What brown means in branding

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Brown is the colour of soil, wood and bark, and is strongly tied to the natural world. In surveys in Europe and the United States it came out as the least popular colour. Researchers have suggested it reads as competence in advertising, because it is linked with reliability and support.

Four palettes from brown

Worked out in OKLCH from the swatch above. Open one to get the light and dark themes, the contrast check and the code.

• Analogous
• Complementary
• Triadic
• Split

History

• In ancient Rome, brown clothing was associated with the lower classes.
• Franciscan monks wore brown robes as a sign of humility and poverty.
• Brown has been a common colour for military uniforms since the late 18th century.

Brands known for brown

• UPS

  Its trucks and uniforms are Pullman Brown, picked because brown is easy to keep clean and because of the luxury of Pullman rail cars. It calls itself "Brown" in its advertising.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Brown

The swatch is my own pick of brown, not an official value.

Other colours

• Redheat, activity, passion, anger, love, joy
• Orangeamusement, warmth, energy, activity, extroversion
• Yellowamusement, gentleness, humour, happiness, spontaneity
• Greennature, life, health, youth, hope
• Blueharmony, confidence, knowledge, intelligence, calmness
• Purplerarity, royalty, luxury, ambition, mystery
• Pinksweetness, innocence, femininity
• Blackelegance, authority, secrets, force
• Whiteperfection, honesty, cleanliness, the new, neutrality