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Claim offerInspiration in the color taupe.
Learn the history and meaning of the color taupe, a timeless hue at the intersection of brown and gray.
Get inspired with taupe design templates.
The color taupe is an unassuming neutral that appears everywhere, indoors and out.
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How to use the color taupe.
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A natural use for taupe.
Just as the mole-inspired name of the color taupe would suggest, taupe color can be beautifully used in projects that touch on nature or health. Taupe is naturally occurring all over the world — not just on the backs of moles.
Turn the intensity down a notch with taupe.
Sometimes, the look of a project becomes too intense. For example, too many bright colors can be overstimulating or make text hard to read. The color taupe is useful to add subtlety and to tone intense colors down.
“Split the difference” with the color taupe.
Taupe color has a specific interaction with blue. A split complementary color is a color’s perfect opposite on the color wheel. In the case of the color taupe, the complementary color is blue. Combine the two in a project, and your work will never risk looking bland or dull.
Make beautiful things with the color taupe.
Taupe color has a bland reputation. As with all neutrals, though, the color taupe is a perfect foundation for something beautiful. Combine taupe with rich browns for a deeply earthy feel. Combine a rich orange with the color taupe to add energy to a project. Taupe color paired with turquoise offers a vintage feel.
Information about taupe color.
The taupe HEX code picker is #483C32. This balances dark brown and gray.
The color taupe can be achieved in a RGB space with 72 red, 60 green, and 50 blue. Taupe color can be achieved in a CMYK color space with 57% cyan, 61% magenta, 69% yellow, and 52% black.
What is the meaning of the color taupe?
The color taupe hangs in the balance between dark brown and gray. This unassuming neutral is regularly overlooked. Its presence throughout history, though, proves that taupe color is timelessness. The word taupe comes from the French word for mole. Taupe was named after the shade of a French moleskin.
Taupe color isn’t brown. It isn’t gray. Taupe enjoys its longstanding appreciation as a nature-inspired neutral.
The history of taupe.
Taupe isn’t a color people think of often — or agree on.
Taupe is not a popular color. The color taupe is unassuming. It’s burrowed out of sight, much like its namesake. Even fashion or design professionals who work with color don’t agree on the exact blend of brown and gray that make it. Perhaps a common French mole can help align the art world. The hex #483C32 matches the color taupe defined in the 1930 book, A Dictionary of Color, inspired precisely by moleskin.
The history of taupe began before the word was adopted in English.
The color taupe is a word taken from the French taupe, the word for mole (the burrowing mammal). Taupe color came to describe the unique hue that blends dark brown and gray. The first recorded use of the term as a color dates as far back as the early 1800s, but its widespread use wasn’t sealed until the 1900s. In 1911, taupe color first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Taupe color has been cyclical in every corner of design.
The color taupe has made cyclical appearances in interior design, fashion, and art. What makes a pigment like taupe timeless is that it’s never trendy. It’s not “hip” to use taupe, which means people never see it overused. Recent cycles of taupe’s modest bumps in popularity include the World War II era when neutrals were popular. The color taupe also became more popular late in the 1990s when minimalist palettes took over in interior design.
The color taupe across different cultures.
Taupe is not trendy, meaning it’s been quietly applied everywhere.
Some colors attract passionate adoption by religions, nations, social movements, and sports groups. Those colors are usually bright. Taupe color is a dusky and neutral hue. It mixes colors opposite each other on the color wheel. The result is the gray-brown taupe that has traveled around the world — but under the radar. The color taupe appears in examples as varied as nature in Japanese art, décor in Chile, and cosmetics in Turkey. It’s everywhere, and has made more appearances than we can count.
Taupe has more popularity in certain corners of the world.
Just search for “Scandinavian minimalism” and you’ll see more taupe than ever. There is no singular Scandinavian color palette. There is, however, a tendency toward neutral colors. The color taupe plays beautifully into the contemporary Hygge design style. Taupe color adds warmth without overstimulating the senses.
The language we speak influences our idea of the color taupe.
French speakers have a different idea of taupe than English speakers. Say taupe in French, and its namesake moleskin comes to mind. Does that make the color taupe less glamorous, or more glamorous? In English, taupe only depicts the dusky, muted tone. Other languages do not have a name for taupe, or people call it something that has nothing to do with moles.