Confident Cardinal
Confident Cardinal (#8A2432) is a deep red with a warm character. It leans warm, pulling light toward red, orange, and yellow. Naturally inviting, it suits editorial and hospitality contexts. Its HSL profile (352°, 59%, 34%) 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 teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
A late-Latin participle, confidens, trusting — borrowed into English in the sixteenth century. As a color modifier, confident implies saturation combined with poise: a confident red doesn't try too hard, just sits at the level of its hue without overreaching. Sits in the bold-bucket center near bold and resolute.
Named for the scarlet robes of Roman Catholic cardinals, dyed since the thirteenth century with kermes and later cochineal. The color carries the institutional weight of its source — a saturated red-orange that reads as authority rather than romance. Also the bird (Cardinalis cardinalis) of the American east, whose plumage takes its red from carotenoid pigments in the seeds it eats.
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.