
Pantone 448 C - kmskontorp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantone_448_C
======
Arn_Thor
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:
[https://www.itromso.no/ntb/iriks/2019/10/02/N%C3%B8ytrale-
es...](https://www.itromso.no/ntb/iriks/2019/10/02/N%C3%B8ytrale-esker-
reduserer-snuslyst-viser-studie-20076106.ece))

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-s...](https://www.nettavisen.no/okonomi/hoie-boksen-skulle-vaere-stygg-
ny-undersokelse-viser-at-langt-flere-digger-dem/3423853847.html))

Picture of new vs (one type of) old box:
[https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/_stygge_-snusbokser-far-
desig...](https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/_stygge_-snusbokser-far-design-
skryt-1.14026524)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yup. Total failure. In fact, I'd like _all_ products I buy to have this design
(+/\- different colors).

I know it's untenable in practice, but in my perfect imaginary utopia,
products on shelves would have minimalistic (and standardized) packaging with
no branding crap, and the labeling would be maximized for utility. Product
type and core variables (e.g. "milk" and "UHT 2%") in large font, ingredients,
nutrition table and manufacturer/expiry date in small font below or to the
side.

Like e.g. this bottle:
[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BAoadypFBQ4/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BAoadypFBQ4/maxresdefault.jpg).

Every now and then, some company releases a product run with similar
minimalistic packaging; when I spot it in the store, I tend to buy it just for
the packaging.

EDIT:

Come to think of it, I feel like calling bullshit on the whole "ugly color"
idea. What color is actually perceived by a human depends on a lot of factors,
like material, texture, lighting, shadows - or in case of digital
reproductions, color capabilities and calibration of the display. Case in
point: on my half-decent display, this Norway snus looks _premium_ to me, not
ugly. And in a physical store, I bet the vendors set up the colors of the
lights on a shelf to maximize that premium feeling.

If you want to go for maximum effect, you need to take something that the
brain can't just interpret differently because the light slightly changed.
E.g. visceral colors + texture. Or the usual shots of tumors, like on
cigarette boxes in some countries.

If I wanted to go for maximum effect, I'd mandate that the packaging should
contain large photos of: a tumor, a spider, and a lotus seed pod. This would
be sure to scare off a good chunk of the population (don't Google lotus seed
pods if you're not ready to risk a very unpleasant feeling).

~~~
Aaargh20318
I wish there was a supermarket that just didn't have all the redundant
products. Take laundry detergent for example. Why do there need to be 523423
different brands and types. They should offer just 3 options: Color, Dark and
White. I don't want to have to choose between all these irrelevant options, I
just want my clothes to be clean.

They should only offer choices where it matters, like different kinds of beer
or frozen pizza.

~~~
majewsky
This was the original Aldi strategy. Cut down on variety and compete on price
instead. Until the early naughts, the average German Aldi store would have
less than 1000 SKUs. In fact, they didn't have barcode scanners. The cashiers
knew the code for each SKU by heart. It was only in the last 15 years or so
that they slowly ramped up to match other discount supermarkets in selection.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> Cut down on variety and compete on price instead.

I don't care so much about price as I do about convenience. ALDI only sells
low-budget store-brands, and that's going a bit too far. I want A brands where
it matters, and high-quality generic things where it doesn't.

~~~
Chris2048
With the advent of home delivery, this is as easy as filtering inline search
results to said brands. And, if it matters to you, printing out your own
minimalistic labels..

~~~
Aaargh20318
The problem is not the labels, the problem is that I don't want to have to
make a choice.

~~~
cglace
Then just buy all generic store brand.

------
qwerty456127
> 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.

~~~
reaperducer
_It 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.

~~~
hug
I'd love if you were able provide some reading on "superblack", or even just
explain it yourself.

I tried looking it up myself, because it sounds interesting, but of course
search results are polluted with articles on vantablack. "Super black TV" and
related search terms just bring up garbage about OLED TVs and such.

~~~
derefr
Analogue TV encoders took a signal with a dynamic range of "black to white"
(e.g. 0V to 5V) and, before modulating it onto a carrier frequency, first
compressed the signal upwards, making it into a smaller range of e.g. 1V to
5V, making it into a signal that's actually more like "dark grey to white."
Analogue TV decoders did the opposite, treating 1V as the "black level",
stretching the 4V "dynamic range" back into the full black-to-white intensity
range.

Doing this allowed "true 0V" (i.e. gaps cut out of the modulated signal by
electronic post-processing, below the "minimum" intensity of 1V, where you're
just getting carrier) to act as a form of in-band signalling. 0V was used
"outside" the image to both synchronize the TV's raster electronics, and
inform said electronics of the period of time they should be off altogether,
rather than firing even a weak electron beam. (This most noticably prevents
your CRT from drawing a subtle diagonal swoosh when it starts each new frame.)

See also: the terms "front porch" and "back porch" (in e.g.
[https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/201011/what-...](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/201011/what-
is-front-porch-and-back-porch-of-a-video-signal-in-crt-display)), referring to
the parts of each scanline that are 0V.

~~~
taneq
So given that many TVs displayed a flat blue screen on no signal, does that
mean that blue is blacker than black?

~~~
SECProto
I can't recall ever seeing an analogue TV display a flat blue screen - with no
signal, they generally display black&white noise

~~~
Animats
Not colored noise, amusingly. NTSC color TV is backwards compatible with NTSC
black and white TV. Color comes in on a subcarrier of the TV signal, relative
to the black and white signal, and is low bandwidth compared to the intensity
signal.

Because the color signal is optional, TV receivers had to have a detector for
it to enable color. Noise didn't contain the "color burst" that identified the
color signal, so noise showed as black and white noise, not colored confetti.
At least until TV receivers acquired enough signal processing that no-signal
produced a "No Signal" message, a blue screen, or a channel guide.

Gibson has written that he has mixed feelings about that line. Great line, but
dates the work.

------
alpb
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.

> "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.

~~~
BashiBazouk
If 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
Pantone 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=panton...](https://www.pantone.com/color-
finder/448-C?utm_source=pantone_app&utm_source=web_app&utm_campaign=pantone_app_campaign)

------
bedros
Is this the color picked for Microsoft Zune

[https://www.amazon.com/Zune-Digital-Media-Player-
Brown/dp/B0...](https://www.amazon.com/Zune-Digital-Media-Player-
Brown/dp/B000H0QDCC)

~~~
bhauer
And it actually looked quite nice in that application.

~~~
lostlogin
It has a nice warm in look. I wish electronics usually wore in - the iPhone 5s
in space grey was as close as I’ve ever seen to this.

~~~
lttlrck
IMO The iPhone 5 had a special tool-like quality missing from other devices.
It wore down really well.

------
ronilan
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.
[https://www.ronilan.com/](https://www.ronilan.com/) What do you think?

~~~
falcarius
Not 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.

~~~
ronilan
Thanks. I learn a new thing every day.... updated text to #afafaf

(which according to
[https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/](https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/)
is WCAG AA OK in contrast to the ugliest colour in the world)

------
mcv
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.

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
Yes. 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.

------
olivermarks
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'
[https://www.jaguarheritage.com/car/1968-jaguar-
xj6-series-1-...](https://www.jaguarheritage.com/car/1968-jaguar-
xj6-series-1-4-2-litre-saloon/) 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
Brown 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.

------
TimTheTinker
There's a better view on the Pantone website: [https://www.pantone.com/color-
finder/448-C](https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/448-C)

------
grawprog
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.

~~~
blazespin
I dunno about ugliest, but I can imagine it being the least 'fun'. Certainly
kids won't gravitate towards it.

------
Trias11
I think it's ugliest because it's kinda color of poo?

~~~
beamatronic
Source?

~~~
garmaine
What kind of source are you expecting?

~~~
haunter
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale)

~~~
_jal
In 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)

------
Schiphol
Catalan 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)

~~~
enriquto
"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
LOL, I'd say gos com fuig has a greyish thing to it

------
OrgNet
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.

------
stevekemp
I 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/)

------
Etheryte
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?

~~~
mark-r
That would explain a lot. Bianchi Green is very distinctive.

~~~
ehnto
Bianchi 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.

------
tcbasche
> 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.

------
drocan
> 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
The 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)

------
jamespitts
It won't be the ugliest color for long. This choice will have unintended
consequences.

------
wchar_t
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...

~~~
oorza
Yeah but you're much less likely to buy that crucial first pack.

~~~
stickfigure
I 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
Yes, these are all over cigarette packs. I don't know why legislators
overlooked snus when making that requirement.

------
rdtsc
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.

------
alfhj
Interestingly, this is how HN looks with Dark Reader on Firefox:
[https://imgur.com/TIQpd9S](https://imgur.com/TIQpd9S)

------
Pmop
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.

------
Jaruzel
My 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/

------
NextHendrix
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.

------
tartoran
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!!

------
foobar1962
What with the recent smoke, ash, dust and rain in Melbourne, may I suggest the
name “Yarra Blue”.

------
alistairSH
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).

~~~
fao_
There 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
Those 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:

------
samstave
I 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...

------
fenwick67
In 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.

------
lukestateson
All 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
I 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.

------
paraxion
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.

------
Grue3
Looks close to UPS van color. Ugliness is subjective, some people might like
it, especially those who would use tobacco products in the first place.

------
chrisco255
What's the CSS hex code though? Or RGBA value?

~~~
kseistrup
It's #4A412A, rgb(74,65,42), cmyk(39,47,81,67).

------
RyanOD
It's not brown, but it's not not brown.

------
odiroot
To 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
I read "The ugliest colour in the world" before I saw the actual colour and I
had the exact same colour in mind.

------
JohnJamesRambo
I personally love the color. It’s very outdoorsy and rugged. I’d like to paint
my old Toyota 4wd pickup that color.

------
chrissnell
In my opinion, there are no ugly colors, only ugly combinations of colors.

Dropbox has cornered the market on bad color combos

------
WheelsAtLarge
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.

------
keeganjw
Ya know, I don't hate it. It reminds me of coyote brown.

------
mmhsieh
if they wanted to make tobacco packaging unattractive, why not have a plain
white background crawling with cockroaches, rats, etc.? images of tapeworms?

~~~
omnimus
exactly. In my country there are pictures of cancer, destroyed lungs, people
in serious health conditions. pretty nasty stuff

------
mc32
What if they mixed this with weathered maroon?

~~~
scoot
I would think some kind of 1930s hospital mint green would to the trick.

------
Waterluvian
What about neon brown? Definitely much worse.

------
i4t
My whole life looks like a Pantone 448c

------
adultSwim
I like it. Nice high contrast option.

------
JulianMorrison
It's just camouflage brown.

------
unixhero
I have a sweater in that colour!

------
amelius
Ok, what is the most beautiful color in the world?

~~~
a3n
Since we're human and subjective, my _guess_ would be some kind of blue, for
clear skies and pleasant conditions, or green, implying "there's water and
growth here."

------
sterlbuck
kinda like it

