Severe Cedar
Severe Cedar (#712E01) is a deep orange with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (24°, 98%, 22%) places it in the highly saturated band at a dark lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin sevērus, strict / serious. As a color modifier, severe implies a deep-and-uncompromising-formal quality, the dark plain-textile color of Cistercian and Calvinist anti-decorative interior aesthetic. Sits at the deep-and-formal end of the grid, parallel to austere and stern in tone.
The genus Cedrus — Lebanon, Atlas, Deodar — the great cedar trees of the eastern Mediterranean and Himalayan foothills, prized in antiquity for the rot-resistant timber that built Solomon's Temple and Pharaonic ships. The color refers to mature cedar foliage: a deep, slightly blue-green with the resinous warmth of cedrol oil. Cooler than pine, drier than spruce, with the architectural weight of a wood that scents whole regions.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.