colors
Back to gallery

Bold Nasturtium

#8c3302
Notes

Bold Nasturtium (#8C3302) 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 (21°, 97%, 28%) 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.

HEX
#8c3302
RGB
rgb(140, 51, 2)
HSL
hsl(21, 97%, 28%)
HWB
hwb(21 1% 45%)
OKLCH
oklch(44.4% 0.132 42.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5081 0.2229 0.0818)
HSV
hsv(21, 99%, 55%)
LAB
lab(33.88% 35.93 44.69)
LCH
lch(33.88% 57.34 51.20)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 64%, 99%, 45%)

Etymology

Bold
adjective

Old English beald, brave, courageous — a quality word that crossed over to color in the late seventeenth century. Bold describes a color that asserts itself: high saturation combined with mid lightness, where the hue presents itself without compromise. Sits at the center of the bold-bucket grid, near strong and rich. Closer to a presence word than a pigment word.

Nasturtium
noun

Tropaeolum majus, the South American climbing plant naturalized as a kitchen-garden flower across Europe. Nasturtium (from the Latin naris-torquere, nose-twisting, for the peppery flavor) has edible leaves and saturated red-orange flowers. The color refers to a fresh T. majus bloom: a saturated, slightly red orange with the satin finish of bee-pollinated flower. Brighter than carrot.

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 explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

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.

#8c3302
Original
#4d4300
Protanopia
#635700
Deuteranopia
#9b1a2b
Tritanopia
#424242
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

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.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon White
8.11:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon Black
2.59:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##8C3302
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5081 0.2229 0.0818)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.132

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

Related Colors

Canvas