43 ms·
Pantone 448 C
- Etheryte 7y agoSomeone correct me if my anecdotal memory is wrong, but didn't Bianchi ask their customers for color preference and then sell the least liked color to great success?
- sgarman 7y agoI hope it was celeste.
- mark-r 7y agoThat would explain a lot. Bianchi Green is very distinctive.
- ehnto 7y agoBianchi Celeste/Green is still a fairly traditionally pleasing colour, popular for many things. Perhaps it was the least liked of the popular vote they had, where all the colours were reasonable. I wonder if they would have still done it had the least favourite been #00FF00.
- syncsynchalt 7y agoI like the (debunked) legend that they mixed the two cheapest paints available, white and army surplus green, and made the best of the postwar financial situation.
- mc32 7y agoWhat if they mixed this with weathered maroon?
- scoot 7y agoI would think some kind of 1930s hospital mint green would to the trick.
- OrgNet 7y agoI like it as a camouflage color... I painted my kids' tree house a very similar color and it made it much less visible with all the trees in the background.
- alpb 7y agoI love how the references note that all the news articles talking about it use a different color to talk about it, as the tone itself is hard to tell whether it's just a dark grey or black or some tone of brown. > "This is the world's ugliest colour, according to experts". Evening Standard. 7 June 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2016. N.B. As of 2018-03-29, the image there erroneously shows colour #5D4914, rather than #4A412A. > "Researchers discover the ugliest color in the world: Pantone 448 C". Digital Trends. 16 June 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2016. N.B. As of 2018-03-29, the image there erroneously shows colour #4D442E, rather than #4A412A. > "Does this colour turn you off?". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 19 June 2016. N.B. As of 2018-03-29, the image there erroneously shows colour #594A13, rather than #4A412A.
- egypturnash 7y agoKeeping color correct across different media is a royal pain in the ass.
- BashiBazouk 7y agoIf it's a hex code or RGB value it is a Pantone equivalent anyway and may or may not be in the realm of accurate, and is likely not even close if your monitor is not well calibrated. So it probably doesn't much matter what hex code they use as long as it's in the general area. Pantone colors at their heart are ink mixing formulas for spot printing on specific papers. I think it's funny that in a thread about a Pantone color, no one has posted it's CMYK value. C:39 M:47 Y:81 K:67 would be a better representation but it would still depend on the printer, the inks it uses and what material the color is printed on. Yes, I live in Pantone. I'll have to check out the real color in the coated book in the morning...
- colonwqbang 7y agoPantone colours have "official" RGB approximations. But I agree with you that what matters is how it's perceived. https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/448-C?utm_source=pantone_app&utm_source=web_app&utm_campaign=pantone_app_campaign https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/448-C?utm_source=panton...
- Trias11 7y agoI think it's ugliest because it's kinda color of poo?
- Benjammer 7y agoI think it's an instinctual reaction because it's like poo color, but wrong in some way, like it's a bit too dark, so it's like our instincts have us thinking that color means we're sick. Like if there's blood it can make it darker.
- beamatronic 7y agoSource?
- garmaine 7y agoWhat kind of source are you expecting?
- haunter 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale
- _jal 7y agoIn the learn-something-poo department, I didn't previously know this term until reading that page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectal_tenesmus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectal_tenesmus
- dzhiurgis 7y agoYeah but with liver failure (hepatitis or alcoholism)
- bedros 7y agoIs this the color picked for Microsoft Zune https://www.amazon.com/Zune-Digital-Media-Player-Brown/dp/B000H0QDCC https://www.amazon.com/Zune-Digital-Media-Player-Brown/dp/B0...
- fc_barnes 7y agoAKA “Ubuntu Brown”
- ronilan 7y agoI've used #412f1c for years as my personal site background. I've now changed it to #4A412A (Pantone 448 C). Looks just as good to me. Has better story. https://www.ronilan.com/ https://www.ronilan.com/ What do you think?
- function_seven 7y agoI just switched back and forth between old and new color. Old one looks way better than the new one. But the story might be worth keeping the change :)
- mywittyname 7y agoThanks for this! Seeing how a color interacts with other colors is really crucial for appreciating it. I get why it failed market research, it's surprisingly bold for such a drab color. Which I think makes for an interesting feeling because I find drab and bold to be antithetical to each other, yet this color manages to be both. Also, it feels neither warm nor cool, which is also a little off-putting. I was playing around with making the grey banner at the top a more warm grey, and it was terrible, but I went with an even cooler grey, and it was still terrible. The most complimentary color I found was something around #dedfd9, and it's still merely, not terrible. It does kind of remind me of an old Gameboy, especially with the sepia picture of you.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mattrick 7y agoThis made me curious which projects on Github use this color, and it seems pretty common as a shadow color in Material design: https://github.com/search?q=%22%23412f1c%22&type=Code https://github.com/search?q=%22%23412f1c%22&type=Code
- falcarius 7y agoNot sure if you've considered accessibility, but the original color has better contrast with the font. That being said, it's not a huge deal and it's certainly a cool color to use.
- TimTheTinker 7y agoThere's a better view on the Pantone website: https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/448-C https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/448-C
- fenwick67 7y agoIn my head, this color is so closely associated with the color green (moss, trees, grass etc) that it almost looks green. I'm not colorblind, but I immediately would call this a greenish-brown, even though that's not a thing.
- amelius 7y agoOk, what is the most beautiful color in the world?
- RyanOD 7y agoIt's not brown, but it's not not brown.
- keeganjw 7y agoYa know, I don't hate it. It reminds me of coyote brown.
- jamespitts 7y agoIt won't be the ugliest color for long. This choice will have unintended consequences.
- lukestateson 7y agoAll colors should be treated equally. There should be no discrimination based on color. Every color is beautiful in it's own way. But here we are, Tiffany Blue considered pretty and Drab Dark Brown is ugly. It is not ugly, It's just color positive.
- munchbunny 7y agoI don’t know about you, but I find Tiffany Blue to be about 70% of the way to pretty. It’s too fluorescent for my eyes, and it bothered me the last time I was in one of their stores.
- qwerty456127 7y ago> Pantone 448 C, also known as the "The ugliest colour in the world", is a colour in the Pantone colour system. Described as a "drab dark brown" Things leading the ratings of the ugliest things are rarely ugly. This applies to architecture and it seems to be the same with colors. Dark brown is not the ugliest color, the ugliest color is magenta. It is commonly used as a transparency placeholder for a reason - nobody wants to actually see it. Just imagine a website with #4A412A background - it's ok, people will read it if you put something interesting there as soon as you use a reasonable color for the font. Now imagine a website with #FF00FF background - it's a disaster, everybody is going to close it immediately as soon as they accidentally navigate to it, no matter what font color you use.
- Waterluvian 7y agoIt's all context specific. I would eat magenta cotton candy.
- olivermarks 7y agoI saw it at Burning Man
- reaperducer 7y agoIt is commonly used as a transparency placeholder for a reason - nobody wants to actually see it. My memory from my days in television was that magenta was used to represent transparency because it was the opposite of chroma green, and was easy to generate electronically. That's why it ended up being in one of the palettes for the primitive-by-today's-standards CGA adapter in the early IBM PC's. Chroma green, magenta, and superblack were three "magic colors" that made TV production work in the pre-digital age. Sadly, there is no wikipedia entry for superblack even though everyone saw it all the time, and few understood its utility.
- ineedasername 7y agoWhat is it about magenta that makes it easy to generate electronically?
- Waterluvian 7y agoWhat about neon brown? Definitely much worse.
- rdtsc 7y agoI wonder if there is a some kind of a subliminal psychoanalytical trick, where by going out of their way to make it super ugly they make it appealing. I can certainly see teenagers responding that way.
- WheelsAtLarge 7y agommmm, I have a shirt that's similar in color to Pantone 448 C. It's not exact since colors can be very technical but close enough. Especially after it faded from its original color. I wonder what it says about me since I like it.
- olivermarks 7y agoMy former life as an advertising art director meant I spent a lot of time at press checks for print work, and all browns are notoriously difficult to bring any life into. Chocolate for example looks like a turd without some serious retouching (hence all the shiny highlights in photos). Separately this colour was all the rage for cars in the 70's: example of a series 1 xj6 in 'sable' https://www.jaguarheritage.com/car/1968-jaguar-xj6-series-1-4-2-litre-saloon/ https://www.jaguarheritage.com/car/1968-jaguar-xj6-series-1-... This car is stunning in real life IMO Terence Conran's UK Habitat furniture stores relied heavily no mushroomy colours like this as high fashion back then also. Beauty is in the eyes of the fashion creators...
- ehnto 7y agoBrown car interiors of the 70s and 80s were another fairly unique period of car design where brown flourished. I wonder if they were trying to capture the feel of wood and leather, as they moved into using plastics for interiors.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Pmop 7y agoInteresting. Things can go from ugly to nice quite easily, this is very observable in the fashion world; for instance, see modern streetwear. This phenomena seems to suggest that the concept of beauty and desirability is subjective, and can be influenced by external factors, and as such, might change in unexpected ways. If that's true, those who have chosen this color with the intention of discouraging tobacco use might be in for a surprise.
- samstave 7y agoI used that color here as the background... https://i.imgur.com/HFZphNm.png https://i.imgur.com/HFZphNm.png And here https://i.imgur.com/XsxNXNo.png https://i.imgur.com/XsxNXNo.png I actually like it...
- tcbasche 7y ago> The Australian Department of Health initially referred to the color as "olive green", but the name was changed after concerns were expressed by the Australian Olive Association Amazing.
- wchar_t 7y agoHonestly, I don't think putting this color on cigarette packaging is going to stop people from buying it. If you're addicted to it, you're going to buy it, who cares what color it's packing is...
- oorza 7y agoYeah but you're much less likely to buy that crucial first pack.
- stickfigure 7y agoI kinda doubt a bit of olive drab is going to make the difference. Pictures of cancerous lung tissue send a pretty clear message though.
- swebs 7y agoYes, these are all over cigarette packs. I don't know why legislators overlooked snus when making that requirement.
- monadgonad 7y agoIt's about putting off new people, especially kids. No longer are there any cool-looking Lucky Strikes, or whatever.
- paraxion 7y agoMy coworker just referred to it as "a liquorice sh*t" and I don't believe he could've come up with a more accurate and instantly-recognizable descriptor.
- grawprog 7y agoThey just changed the cigarette packages to this colour here a few weeks ago. When I seen them I said to the person who showed me 'that's like the ugliest colour I've seen, that was on purpose wasn't it?' I guess, according to this article, it was. It really is just unappealing to look at.
- blazespin 7y agoI dunno about ugliest, but I can imagine it being the least 'fun'. Certainly kids won't gravitate towards it.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoI personally love the color. It’s very outdoorsy and rugged. I’d like to paint my old Toyota 4wd pickup that color.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- foobar1962 7y agoWhat with the recent smoke, ash, dust and rain in Melbourne, may I suggest the name “Yarra Blue”.
- Arn_Thor 7y agoFun fact: They mandated all packages of snus (a "dip", or tobacco you put under your lip) sold in Norway must be plain and in this color. But it actually looks kind of good—very minimalist. So much so that people like this packaging more. (Image and source, Norwegian: https://www.itromso.no/ntb/iriks/2019/10/02/N%C3%B8ytrale-esker-reduserer-snuslyst-viser-studie-20076106.ece https://www.itromso.no/ntb/iriks/2019/10/02/N%C3%B8ytrale-es...) When asked how much they like the new packaging, 30% say "a lot" or "pretty well", compared with 20% for the old packaging. (Norwegian, https://www.nettavisen.no/okonomi/hoie-boksen-skulle-vaere-stygg-ny-undersokelse-viser-at-langt-flere-digger-dem/3423853847.html https://www.nettavisen.no/okonomi/hoie-boksen-skulle-vaere-s...) Picture of new vs (one type of) old box: https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/_stygge_-snusbokser-far-design-skryt-1.14026524 https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/_stygge_-snusbokser-far-desig...
- rblatz 7y agoHilarious, looks like an expensive all natural beard wax.
- arkitaip 7y agoI think this is a great example of brutalist/ugly design where you go so far to the opposite on the aesthetic spectrum that your design starts to appeal to people.
- omnimus 7y agoWell because it is not ugly. It is utilitarian. It looks like military rations design which are often wonderful (especially japanese and australian army) and extremely well designed.
- mortenjorck 7y agoIf the design brief was to make something unappealing, that does indeed look like a total failure. The restrained typography and muted color give the product a more upmarket look. What this really called for was the Impact font, Microsoft WordArt, gradients, drop shadows, and maybe some stock photography. [Update: I have answered the call: http://presteign.com/files/skruf.jpg http://presteign.com/files/skruf.jpg]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mmhsieh 7y agoif they wanted to make tobacco packaging unattractive, why not have a plain white background crawling with cockroaches, rats, etc.? images of tapeworms?
- omnimus 7y agoexactly. In my country there are pictures of cancer, destroyed lungs, people in serious health conditions. pretty nasty stuff
- tartoran 7y agoAny color looks different in conjunction with another color. There’s at least a color out there that makes 448 C look great beside it, im absolutely sure of that. I wonder who decides these type of subjective as the ugliest color. Whats the most beautiful? Hard to tell because it’s all subjective!!
- adultSwim 7y agoI like it. Nice high contrast option.
- chrisco255 7y agoWhat's the CSS hex code though? Or RGBA value?
- kseistrup 7y agoIt's #4A412A, rgb(74,65,42), cmyk(39,47,81,67).
- Jaruzel 7y agoMy monitor is colour calibrated, yet a Google image search shows this: https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=isch&q=Pantone%20448%20C https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=isch&q=Pantone%20448%20C Despite all the bells and whistles added to the web over the past 20 years, it seems we still can't get colour right. /sigh/
- stevekemp 7y agoI recently saw this photography project, where Angelica Dass was matching pantones to people's skin. Lovely results: https://www.angelicadass.com/humanae-project/ https://www.angelicadass.com/humanae-project/
- i4t 7y agoMy whole life looks like a Pantone 448c
- sterlbuck 7y agokinda like it
- Schiphol 7y agoCatalan has a name for this color. 'Merda d'oca', which means 'goose shit': https://ca.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/color_de_merda_d%27oca https://ca.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/color_de_merda_d%27oca (in Catalan)
- mtremsal 7y agoThis Catalan word apparently seeped into French as "caca d'oie". It's typically used for a more yellow-ish green than the brown of the article though. Wikipedia traces its use back to the 17th century. https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caca_d%27oie https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caca_d%27oie
- enriquto 7y ago"Merda d'oca" is definitely lighter. This one would be rather "color de gos com fuig" (literally, the color of a dog running away).
- Schiphol 7y agoLOL, I'd say gos com fuig has a greyish thing to it
- NextHendrix 7y agoI can't help but think that the people affected most by the debranding of cigarette packs are cashiers. I used to work in a small convenience store, and finding the right pack a customer asked for from the giant wall of smokes behind the till was difficult enough when they were all different colours.
- drocan 7y ago> Since 2016, the same colour has also been used for plain cigarette packaging in France, the United Kingdom, Israel, Norway, New Zealand, Slovenia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. I purchased a grand total of two packets before quitting 3 weeks ago, thanks colour science!
- EdwardDiego 7y agoThe colour and the gruesome images[0] didn't faze me at all, I was addicted to what was inside, so the package was just an aside, although I did prefer the "smoking will harm your unborn baby" packaging because I'm not pregnant, and it had a cute baby on it. I hope it would make smoking less glamorous for teenagers, but I've no idea if there's research on that. [0]https://i.redd.it/np95errspxb41.jpg https://i.redd.it/np95errspxb41.jpg
- odiroot 7y agoTo be honest, I like this colour. Reminds me of military camo. They should have made it turquoise. Would definitely work better to discourage me.
- progfix 7y agoI read "The ugliest colour in the world" before I saw the actual colour and I had the exact same colour in mind.
- Grue3 7y agoLooks close to UPS van color. Ugliness is subjective, some people might like it, especially those who would use tobacco products in the first place.
- mcv 7y agoI don't think any individual colour can be ugly. Ugliness depends on context, on combinations with other colours. For example, yesterday I was wearing two different shades of purple. That was ugly. Any one of them would look great with black, but combine the two and it's ugly. If they want to make ugliness mandatory for things they want to discourage, they should prescribe ugly colour combinations, not single colours. Although I doubt even that will work. Things that are considered ugly in one decade can often become popular in the next, and vice versa.
- arketyp 7y agoYes. Very naïve campaign. Great branding artefact though, quite a unique color if anything. It will probably become as consolidated in the collective unconscious as the Marlboro red-white geometry.
- unixhero 7y agoI have a sweater in that colour!
- alfhj 7y agoInterestingly, this is how HN looks with Dark Reader on Firefox: https://imgur.com/TIQpd9S https://imgur.com/TIQpd9S
- chrissnell 7y agoIn my opinion, there are no ugly colors, only ugly combinations of colors. Dropbox has cornered the market on bad color combos
- JulianMorrison 7y agoIt's just camouflage brown.
- alistairSH 7y agoWho says it's the ugliest color in the world? No citation in the wikipedia entry. It just looks like a generic military camp color to me (whether or not it actually is used that way, that was my first thought on viewing the color).
- fao_ 7y agoThere are four citations to newspaper articles about a study from Australia, right after it says "Described as a "drab dark brown", it was selected in 2016 as the colour for plain tobacco and cigarette packaging in Australia, after market researchers determined that it was the least attractive colour."
- alistairSH 7y agoThose all cite the same finding from a business research firm hired by Australia. I was hoping for something slightly more "scientific" than "these marketing guys say it's ugly" :shrug: