Hue and cry over the world’s favourite colour
After a global survey, our No 1 shade has been found – and named after a woman from Dundee
The shade of green in this satchel is, apparently, the world’s favourite colour. It is called Marrs Green, after Annie Marrs, from Dundee who said it matched the rich blue, grey and green tones of the Tay.
IT IS the world’s favourite colour, but no one can decide whether it is blue or green.
The shade was chosen after a sixmonth global survey of preferred colours, and then named Marrs Green, after Annie Marrs, a Unesco worker from Dundee.
Miss Marrs is a fine arts graduate who said the shade matched the rich blue, grey and green tones that “dance” on the River Tay, in her home city.
The competition, organised by Hull 2017 UK City of Culture and the paper merchant GF Smith, invited people to select their favourite shade online by hovering over a palette of shades with their mouse until they landed on the colour they found most appealing.
The results of 30,000 people across 100 countries were then combined to find out which was the most popular, and Miss Marrs’s shade was the closest to the overall consensus.
But colour experts said although the shade has been called a green, it would not be incorrect to view it as a shade of blue.
Peter Giles, a colour adviser at Farrow & Ball, said: “It’s almost a teal colour. You could almost say it (Marrs Green) was more of an aqua colour. It’s one of those that could be either green or blue depending on who you ask.” Miss Marrs travelled to Hull yesterday to celebrate the launch of the colour at a pop-up shop in the city centre, where well-known British items, such as satchels from the Cambridge Satchel Company, and Anglepoise lamps, were reproduced in the shade.
In a happy coincidence, the colour was announced by Martin Green, the chief executive of Hull 2017.
Miss Marrs, who now works as a cultural producer at Leisure & Culture Dundee, said: “It feels absolutely amazing. It’s an absolute privilege to have a colour named after me. It’s been a surreal experience but a very special one and quite overwhelming at times. I can see us having to redecorate.”
Marrs Green will now join G F Smith’s Colourplan range and is available for use by designers, brands and individuals.
Caroline Till, editor of Viewpoint Colour Magazine, said the colour reflects a yearning for the harmony of nature: “In these uncertain times, where political and social upheaval has become the norm, we crave the calming tranquillity of green and its association with the reassuring certainty of nature’s cycles.”
In 2015, a Yougov survey revealed that blue was the world’s favourite colour in a series of surveys covering 10 countries across four continents.
Thirty-three per cent of Britons surveyed said it was their favourite colour, the highest level out of all countries listed. Even in Indonesia, where it had the fewest fans, at 23 per cent, it came top by a wide margin.
‘Annie Marrs said the shade matched the rich blue, grey and green tones that dance on the River Tay in Dundee, her home city’