Drowned Zhusha
Drowned Zhusha (#7B2512) is a deep red 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 (11°, 74%, 28%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary cyan. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
The past participle of drown — used as a color word principally in literary contexts for the dark blue-green of deep water and the muted browns of waterlogged earth. Drowned implies darkness with the optical complexity of a fluid medium absorbing and scattering light. Sits in the deep-and-cool quadrant, near sunken.
The Chinese name for cinnabar — mercury sulfide — ground into the imperial-seal pigment used in Chinese painting, lacquerware, and the carved cinnabar-lacquer ornaments of the Ming dynasty. The color refers to a freshly stamped zhusha seal on rice paper: a saturated, slightly orange red with the matte finish of fine mineral pigment. Cooler than vermillion, brighter than crimson.
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.