Brown: 45 shades, names and colour codes

Browns often recall earth, wood and leather. They range from dark beige to chocolate. The CSS keyword brown denotes a specific value that is redder than many everyday browns.

Brown rarely appears alone: it is already present in wood, leather, cork and some flooring. Start with the dominant material and notice whether it looks reddish, golden or greyed. Chocolate and cream suit a different direction from cognac and deep blue.

Brown and cream: distribute light and dark

Chocolate brown can structure a cream composition without requiring black. In a living room, try a brown sofa, light surfaces and a few objects that echo the brown. In a document, cream can provide the background and chocolate the graphic cues. Check the selected codes if those colours are used for text.

Brown and blue: give wood a contrasting companion

Cognac and navy create a clearer difference than brown and beige. In an outfit, pair a cognac accessory with a blue garment and keep the rest simple. In a room, compare the blue with both the light and dark parts of the wood: grain can change the pairing depending on the area you look at.

Brown and green: identify both colour directions

Dark walnut with greyed sage makes lightness differences important. Golden brown with olive creates a closer combination. To prevent a uniform result, add an ecru area and distinguish the materials. Choose the green after viewing the wood or leather under the intended lighting rather than relying only on a photograph.

Two woods do not need to be identical to share a space. Compare their general undertones, lightness and grain. You can choose a dominant wood and a distinctly lighter or darker second one, then connect them with a plain textile. Ordering furniture in an “almost identical colour” without a sample makes the result harder to predict.

Start with 60% cream, 25% chocolate and 15% greyed blue. Blue introduces a different colour family while cream separates the volumes. For a product photograph, place the object in the mock-up before settling on these proportions.

Flooring, sofa, curtains and furniture can all be brown yet create an arrangement that is difficult to read. Introduce a lighter plain area and reduce competing patterns. If one feature should remain central, give it a visible difference in lightness or material rather than adding another brown.