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DESIGN6 min read· Jun 22, 2026

The Ultimate Guide to Brown Color Codes, Hex Codes, and Shades of Brown

Brown is the color of warmth, craft, and natural materials — it anchors leather goods, coffee, furniture, and earthy, organic brands. It is also one of the most material-dependent hues: brown leather, wood, and fabric each read differently. Whether you are a web designer matching co-brand assets, an e-commerce manager building variant listings, or a developer wiring up a design system, color codes are your shared language. In this guide we break down the hex codes, RGB coordinates, and LAB parameters for the most popular shades of brown, with practical tips on recoloring assets into these exact tones without quality loss.

The Ultimate Guide to Brown Color Codes, Hex Codes, and Shades of Brown

The core browns and their codes

  • Pure brown — #964B00 · RGB(150, 75, 0) · a warm mid brown.
  • Chocolate — #7B3F00 · RGB(123, 63, 0) · a deep, rich brown for premium goods.
  • Tan — #D2B48C · RGB(210, 180, 140) · a light, sandy brown popular in fashion.
  • Espresso — #3C2415 · RGB(60, 36, 21) · a near-black coffee brown.
  • Chestnut — #954535 · RGB(149, 69, 53) · a warm red-brown for wood and leather.
  • Beige — #F5F5DC · RGB(245, 245, 220) · a pale, neutral brown for backgrounds and decor.

Why hex alone isn't enough for recoloring

A hex code defines a target color, but it says nothing about lightness. Brown is a low-lightness mix of red, orange, and yellow, so a flat RGB swap muddies the grain of wood or leather and flattens the highlights that make those materials look real.

This is why perceptually-uniform spaces matter. LAB separates lightness (the L channel — grain, folds, highlights, shadows) from the color itself (A and B). Recoloring in LAB lets you hit an exact brown hex while the wood grain or leather texture survives intact.

Matching brand browns across assets

Brown shifts dramatically with material and lighting — a tan bag in studio light and the same tan in a hex swatch can look like two colors, so locking to an exact value matters. Define each brand brown once — with a name, a hex, and a use case — and recolor every asset to that exact value rather than eyeballing it.

With Recolorify you can paste an exact brown hex and recolor a logo, product photo, or garment to match it precisely, keeping texture intact. See also our guides to beige color codes and gold color codes.