Brand Black Is Not #000000: How Chanel, Lacoste, Amazon and Apple Use Black
Pure black has no shadows and prints as a dark gray. The famous black logos use a softer black instead. Their exact hex codes, and how to pick a black for your logo.
The black in a famous logo is almost never #000000. Pure black is the darkest value a screen can show, which sounds like the point of black, until you try to put a shadow on it and find there is nothing darker to use. Printed with black ink alone, it also comes back as a dark gray.
Why pure black is the wrong black
Pure black is the one color where the screen sends no light at all. That makes it the floor: nothing sits below it. So a card on a pure black page has no shadow to stand on, because a shadow is only a darker patch of the ground.
Pure black, #000000
Soft black, #1D1D1F
This matters for a logo because a logo does not live on one flat page. It lands on dark sites, app splash screens and dark mode, where depth and glow are part of how it looks.
Why pure black prints gray
The second problem shows up on paper. Printing ink does not make a black as dark as a screen can, so a file that asks for 100% black ink alone comes back lighter than it looked.
On screen
Print, simulated on coated paper
Black ink alone (0/0/0/100 in CMYK) proofs on a standard coated press profile as about #2B2B2A. That is a soft proof, not a press proof, but the direction is reliable: the black on your business card will look lighter than the black on your website. Print designers build a rich black from several inks when they want the deepest dark.
A logo that is already a soft black on screen loses less when it prints, because there is less distance to fall.
How the famous blacks do it
These are the values in each brand's logo file, not a published brand specification.
Chanel: #161413
The interlocked Cs are drawn in a very dark brown-black. To the eye it reads as plain black. Only next to pure black does the warmth show.
Lacoste: #181713
The Lacoste wordmark is a black with a faint olive tint. The black has a hint of yellow in it and sits beside the green crocodile.
Amazon: #221F1F
The Amazon wordmark is the lightest of the four, a warm charcoal with a red lean. The orange arrow below it carries the color.
Apple: #1D1D1F
Apple site text
Apple is a different case: the logo file is plain black, but the text on apple.com is set in #1D1D1F, read from the site's CSS on 4 November 2026. It leans very slightly blue, the one cool black of the four.
What they share
None of them is pure black. Every one sits about 19 to 24 steps above zero on a 100-step lightness scale, enough for a shadow to land under it and a printer to hold it.
None of them looks colored. The tint is a few points of difference between the red, green and blue channels. You feel it next to white or pure black, and nowhere else.
| Black | Hex | Lightness (of 100) | Tint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pure black | #000000 | 0 | None |
| Chanel | #161413 | 19 | Warm brown |
| Lacoste | #181713 | 20 | Faint olive |
| Apple site text | #1D1D1F | 23 | Faint blue |
| Amazon | #221F1F | 24 | Warm red |
| Black ink alone, printed | #2B2B2A | 29 | None |
Lightness is the OKLab L value, computed from each hex code.
How to choose a black for your logo
- Pick the tint to match the brand. Warm for a brand with orange, red or gold in it, cool for a tech brand, neutral if you are unsure.
- Land between 17 and 25 on the lightness scale. Dark enough to read as black, light enough for a shadow. Chanel's #161413 is at one end of that range and Amazon's #221F1F at the other.
- Proof it in print. Soft-proof it with a coated paper profile or ask the printer for a proof, then check your black still looks like your black.
Steal these 4 blacks
Use them to test your own black beside them. For a new logo, use the pattern and not the code: a famous brand's exact black on a related business is how a logo ends up looking borrowed.
FAQ
What is the Chanel black hex code?
The Chanel double C logo file is drawn in #161413, a very dark warm black.
What is the Amazon black hex code?
The Amazon wordmark file is drawn in #221F1F, with the arrow in orange.
What is the Apple black hex code?
Apple's website sets its body text in #1D1D1F. The Apple logo file itself is plain black.
Is pure black a bad color for a logo?
It is not wrong, but it is the harder choice. It leaves no room for a shadow on dark backgrounds, and black ink alone prints as a dark gray, so a soft black is the safer pick.
Why does black print as gray?
Paper and ink always reflect a little light, while a screen can switch its light off completely. Converting 100% black ink to a coated press profile simulates as about #2B2B2A. That is a soft proof, not a measured press result.
Sources
- Colors read from each brand's logo file: Chanel (double C), Lacoste and Amazon on Wikimedia.
- Apple: the body text color in the CSS of apple.com, rgb(29, 29, 31), read 4 November 2026.
- Print shift: CMYK 0/0/0/100 converted with the Coated FOGRA39 press profile, relative colorimetric, no black point compensation. A soft proof, not a press proof.
- Lightness computed from the hex codes with the OKLab model.
- The Logo Brainy post this paper grew from: Black is not #000000.
Get new papers by email
New Brainy papers in your inbox. Confirm once, unsubscribe anytime.
