HughPickens.com [hughpickens.com] writes:
Alex Cooke write at Fstoppers that Australian researchers believe they have
found the world's "ugliest" color as judged by the reactions 1,000 study participants [fstoppers.com] had to it, which included such labels as "sewage-tinted" and "death." The world's ugliest color is opaque couché, also known as Pantone 448. The research was done for an important reason. The Australian government will now use it on packaging to help deter consumers from buying tobacco products.
People find the color so repellent it will be used to discourage people from lighting up [usatoday.com]. "‘‘We didn’t want to create attractive, aspirational packaging designed to win customers," says Victoria Parr. "Instead our role was to
help our client reduce demand [brisbanetimes.com.au], with the ultimate aim to minimise use of the product.’’" The new color was found to have the most ability to "minimize appeal" and "maximize perceived harm" and was implemented on plain cigarette packs with health warnings across Australia, However Pantone is keen to state that no color is more beautiful or ugly than the next. Naturally, the company was not thrilled at the choice of its tone for the packaging: “At the Pantone Color Institute, we consider all colours equally,” explained Leatrice Eiseman, executive director. There was, she said, “no such thing as the ugliest colour”. Rather,
448C was associated with “deep, rich earth tones” [theguardian.com], popular on sofas and shoes and other things that might be found in a house.
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