Think nude!
OK so I don’t actually mean get naked and have a good old ponder session to yourself. But have a think about the colour nude… what colour is it?
When you Google ‘nude colour’, this is what appears;
While there are a variety of tones there. The main colours that are standing out are peach, dusty pink and tan. Now for me looking at this Google search result it seems fine. I’m Scottish, ginger and shit scared of the sun. So my skin tone is borderline white, or if I’m lucky… pink!
So this result is relatable… to me.
But what about the millions of people put there who are of a much darker skin tone? How does this search relate to them? Where’s their ‘nude’?
It’s similar with the words ‘bare’ and ‘neutral’ — You will find that most searches for these words in a colour palette setting will give you back much of the same results, beige, pink, white.
The way to fix this isn’t huge, in fact it can be quite small, and still make a huge difference to inclusivity. Underwear company, Heist, have beautifully eliminated this issue by simply having various shades of tights within one range, that they have labelled ‘The Nude’.
I haven’t written this blog to complain at Google searches, yap on about the importance of inclusivity or badger anyone about equality. But merely just to put a bit of pause for thought out there for anyone reading. Maybe, like Heist, if we can change our mindsets for something as small as the colour ‘nude’ maybe we can make a bigger difference in the products and services we design for people.
