The Color Brown Meaning

Boring brown for you business? I’m going to look in detail why brown might actually work for your branding.

Does the color brown sound a bit plain and boring for you? Think about brown form your customers point of view. Is it a color that draws people to your product or services? What would the average person associate with the color brown?

If your web site is aimed at tree surgeons or farmers then brown may well be the color to consider. Brown comes in various shades and generally exists by the combination of 2 colors.

How to make the color brown

What makes the color brown? Brown is an incredible color as pretty much every color can make brown!. You can take primary colors, mix in equal parts red, blue, and yellow and make brown. Alternatively you can add black to give it a richer shade or depth. If you want to give the brown even more depth, mix in a hint of white as well.

You can also use several combinations of colors to get a brown. For example mixing together orange and blue, yellow and purple, or red and green. Brown can come in various forms and shades. Familiar browns include beige, chestnut, chocolate, khaki, tan and taupe. But how can you make the colors and shades from other colors?

So what colors make brown? Most colors mixed together will give you some shade of brown. Nix it with white or black and you will lighten or darken the brown. If you have more than the primary colors then you can mix brown with just 2 colors.

What two colors make brown?

If you are wanting to know what colors to mix for brown you have a large choice. Almost every color in the right proportion can give you a form of brown. This is how I make brown color sing a 2 color combination.

Meaning of color brown

The meaning of brown. That’s a tricky question as it has extreme meanings considering ti’s a natural color. So without going any further, let’s look in detail at the meaning behind the color in question, the natural color brown.

Brown Branding & Design

If brown doesn’t work for you, then do consider a color that is better associated with your line of business. Is your business related to natural products? Brown tends to have the ruggedness and wholesome naturalness found in foods and farming fields. I have looked at every color and its psychological meaning for web designers. Make sure you also take advantage of the highly respected article called The Meaning Of Colors.

For an example of the use of browns in design, take a look at this web site I built last year for a client in my portfolio. The Website was designed with orange in mind as the main color. But orange and brown are closely linked. So this website shows how brown is complimentary to the main orange. The website branding is called Performance Edge Consulting.

Brown Color Scheme From Nature

So we mentioned brown is common in nature. We have seen that most colors can make brown. Also most live items when rotting turn to brown (sorry about that). Brown is found throughout nature. So branding your business is about finding a color hook that relates to your business message.

In the Dorset countryside I went out to find a brown color scheme. I’m not sure if brown is found in flowers as such. We know stems and tree bark along with soil always provide several various shades of brown. Here are the results from the photo. The purpose is to take the digital photo and convert the colors into hex numbers for a designer.

Here is my photo of capturing the brown colors around me. It’s more about earth, soil, dust and natural earthy farming instead of flowers on this photo.

To extract the various brown colors I take the digital photo and upload it to an online color scheme tool to produce a useful color palette.

Here is my example after extracting some of the colors.

It’s amazing how many beautiful browns there are. I was really surprised by how good this color scheme ended up. So please take the hex numbers and use them freely in your next design or re-brand.

• #7A502F – Dark Brown
• #E9C060 – Mustard Brown
• #B96033 – Mid Brown
• #B8A253 – Khaki Brown
• #C7CB5F – Complimentary Green

Brown color psychology branding

Branding with brown. I’ve not heard it very often, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done. Dreyer’s ice cream, and chocolate companies like M&M’s and Hershey’s have used it successfully. What branding comes to mind when you think of brown? Have we missed any obvious ones, if so make sure you let us know in the comments area below?

Negative meanings for brown include:

If you said brown was exciting and stirring I think most people wouldn’t buy into it. Brown is considered a dull, boring, dirty, sad and cheap color. But it is without hypocrisy, so it is honest and that may be important in conveying serious and sensible design. I used it for a solicitor in the past and it works well, brown table and desk with several brown books on law, you get the idea.

Positive meanings for brown include:

You can use brown with gold. The two are closely linked and are miles apart in meaning. Brown has some positive meanings including, natural, wholesome, practical, approachable, friendly, stable, supportive, comforting, reliable, protective, honest and sincere. So office services and quietly confident businesses may thrive on the color brown. Who would of expected a designer brand like Louis Vuitton to successfully use brown?

Other facts about brown

Why is Chocolate brown? This is due to the chocolate comes from the cocoa bean that is also brown.

Brown doesn’t have a specific wavelength as such, it’s close to orange and said to be around 600 nanometres.

Brown colored eyes are in the majority—an estimated 70 to 90 percent of the world’s population have brown eyes.

What Does The Color Brown Mean To You?

we have seen in this article how i make a brown color with a mix of colors. You have seen what colors to mix for brown if you only want to use 2 colors. But most importantly you now understanding the meaning of brown in business an nature.

Breath-taking brown doesn’t exist, so don’t use it in business or branding. But brown is believable, basic and budget. If you have a different view or have successfully designed a smart looking web site which used brown in a stunning way we want to see it. Let us know by commenting below and tell us what the color brown means to you.