(Sorry about the poor quality of photos, I was trying to snap them while driving on the freeway.)
Prime example: driving up Highway 80, you pass obnoxiously white towers against the hillside. I think they are for storing oil.
Quite an eyesore, right? The contrast of white against the black soil just draws your eyes to the towers instead of the beautiful rolling golden hills surrounding them.
Then, heading towards the Richmond Bridge, you see another set of similar towers, but this time, they blend into the landscape.
By using a rusty brown in a middle range value, they don't stand out against their surroundings. The palette of browns fit into what you'd expect to find in this environment, and thus are not jarring or out of place, like the white was. Much nicer, right?You can really see the difference from this google maps satellite shot:
Why is it that cities and industrial companies don't consider these things?