Fun 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: <a href="https://www.itromso.no/ntb/iriks/2019/10/02/N%C3%B8ytrale-esker-reduserer-snuslyst-viser-studie-20076106.ece" rel="nofollow">https://www.itromso.no/ntb/iriks/2019/10/02/N%C3%B8ytrale-es...</a>)<p>When asked how much they like the new packaging, 30% say "a lot" or "pretty well", compared with 20% for the old packaging. (Norwegian, <a href="https://www.nettavisen.no/okonomi/hoie-boksen-skulle-vaere-stygg-ny-undersokelse-viser-at-langt-flere-digger-dem/3423853847.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nettavisen.no/okonomi/hoie-boksen-skulle-vaere-s...</a>)<p>Picture of new vs (one type of) old box: <a href="https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/_stygge_-snusbokser-far-design-skryt-1.14026524" rel="nofollow">https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/_stygge_-snusbokser-far-desig...</a>
> 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"<p>Things leading the ratings of the ugliest things are rarely ugly. This applies to architecture and it seems to be the same with colors.<p>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.
I 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.<p>> "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.<p>> "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.<p>> "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.
Is this the color picked for Microsoft Zune<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Zune-Digital-Media-Player-Brown/dp/B000H0QDCC" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Zune-Digital-Media-Player-Brown/dp/B0...</a>
I'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. <a href="https://www.ronilan.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ronilan.com/</a> What do you think?
I 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.<p>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.
My 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'
<a href="https://www.jaguarheritage.com/car/1968-jaguar-xj6-series-1-4-2-litre-saloon/" rel="nofollow">https://www.jaguarheritage.com/car/1968-jaguar-xj6-series-1-...</a>
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...
There's a better view on the Pantone website: <a href="https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/448-C" rel="nofollow">https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/448-C</a>
They 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.
Catalan has a name for this color. 'Merda d'oca', which means 'goose shit': <a href="https://ca.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/color_de_merda_d%27oca" rel="nofollow">https://ca.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/color_de_merda_d%27oca</a> (in Catalan)
I 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.
I recently saw this photography project, where Angelica Dass was matching pantones to people's skin. Lovely results:<p><a href="https://www.angelicadass.com/humanae-project/" rel="nofollow">https://www.angelicadass.com/humanae-project/</a>
Someone 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?
> 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<p>Amazing.
> 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.<p>I purchased a grand total of two packets before quitting 3 weeks ago, thanks colour science!
Honestly, 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...
I 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.
Interestingly, this is how HN looks with Dark Reader on Firefox:
<a href="https://imgur.com/TIQpd9S" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/TIQpd9S</a>
Interesting. 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.
My monitor is colour calibrated, yet a Google image search shows this:<p><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=isch&q=Pantone%20448%20C" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=isch&q=Pantone%20448%20C</a><p>Despite all the bells and whistles added to the web over the past 20 years, it seems we <i>still can't get colour right.</i><p>/sigh/
I 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.
Any 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!!
Who 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).
I used that color here as the background...<p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/HFZphNm.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/HFZphNm.png</a><p>And here<p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/XsxNXNo.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/XsxNXNo.png</a><p>I actually like it...
In my head, this color is <i>so</i> closely associated with the color green (moss, trees, grass etc) that it almost <i>looks</i> green. I'm not colorblind, but I immediately would call this a greenish-brown, even though that's not a thing.
All colors should be treated equally. There should be no discrimination based on color. Every color is beautiful in it's own way.<p>But here we are, Tiffany Blue considered pretty and Drab Dark Brown is ugly. It is not ugly, It's just color positive.
My 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.
mmmm, 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.
if they wanted to make tobacco packaging unattractive, why not have a plain white background crawling with cockroaches, rats, etc.? images of tapeworms?