The Color Psychology of Brown

brown color psychology

Illustration by Cindy Chung, Verywell

Notice how brown is used in the image above. What does the color brown mean to you? How does brown make you feel? Do you associate brown with certain qualities or situations?

According to color psychology, colors can evoke psychological reactions and influence how people feel and behave. Brown tends to feel like a solid, earthy color, but it can sometimes seem drab and boring. Light browns such as beige are often used as neutrals in design and fashion. While they can provide a conservative and traditional backdrop, these shades are often perceived as dull.

The Color Brown: Meaning in Color Psychology

Like most colors, brown can have positive and negative associations and meanings. Some of the key characteristics associated with brown in color psychology include:

  • A sense of strength and reliability. Brown is often seen as solid, much like the earth, and it's a color often associated with resilience, dependability, security, and safety.
  • Feelings of warmth, comfort, and security. Brown is often described as natural, down-to-earth, and conventional, but brown can also be sophisticated.
  • Negative emotions. Like other dark colors, is associated with more negative emotions.

Brown in Feng Shui

In feng shui, a system of harmonizing your environment, each color correlates to a specific feng shui element. Brown represents either wood, if it's dark and rich, or earth if it's light. Though it has an energetic, nurturing quality, brown should be used sparingly in your decorating and be well balanced with other colors to avoid a lack of ambition and drive. Blue is a good color to combine with brown because of the earth-water harmony.

Brown in Marketing

Color plays an important part in the psychology of marketing and branding and can influence people's perception of a brand's personality. It's more important to pick a color that supports the personality of your brand than it is to try to instill certain feelings in potential customers since everyone has different experiences and opinions.


What Does Brown Mean to You?

While there are generalities we can make about colors and what people associate with them, colors and our affinity toward them have a lot to do with our personalities, upbringing, environment, and experiences.

One recent study on how adults perceive color showed that more females than males chose brown as their overall favorite color. But it was still one of the three least favorite colors for both genders.

However, when it comes to clothing, brown was chosen as the fifth favorite color out of 18 total colors, including no preference. Brown was the second color choice for both men and women for their living rooms and the fourth choice for their bedrooms.

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