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Plentiful Honed Crimson

#a21f08
Notes

Plentiful Honed Crimson (#A21F08) 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 (9°, 91%, 33%) 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 cyan. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a21f08
RGB
rgb(162, 31, 8)
HSL
hsl(9, 91%, 33%)
HWB
hwb(9 3% 36%)
OKLCH
oklch(46.3% 0.169 31.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5835 0.1728 0.0957)
HSV
hsv(9, 95%, 64%)
LAB
lab(35.36% 51.40 45.42)
LCH
lch(35.36% 68.59 41.47)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 81%, 95%, 36%)

Etymology

Plentiful
adjective

Old French plentif, abundant — adjectival suffix -ful, derived from Latin plēnitās (fullness). As a color modifier, plentiful implies a saturated-and-generous quality where the hue carries rich visual abundance without restraint. Sits at the bold-and-saturated end of the grid, parallel to abundant and bountiful.

Honed
modifier

Old English hǣnan, to-sharpen. As a color modifier, honed implies a sharp-edged-and-polished quality, the visual register of Sheffield-and-Solingen-honed-blade hand-honed-and-sharpened-and-polished steel-and-iron-and-bronze Sheffield-and-Solingen-honed-blade surfaces under Sheffield-and-Solingen hand-honed-and-sharpened-blade workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to buffed and gloss in usage.

Crimson
noun

From the Old Spanish cremesin, itself from the Arabic qirmiz — the kermes scale insect, dried and ground into a brilliant carmine dye prized in the medieval Mediterranean. For centuries the most expensive red on a draper's shelf, reserved for cardinals, kings, and the cloth that gave English the word crimson. Cooler than scarlet, deeper than rose; the color of pomegranate seeds and a serious occasion.

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.

#a21f08
Original
#4a4102
Protanopia
#6a5d00
Deuteranopia
#b3001c
Tritanopia
#393939
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
7.68:1
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
2.74:1

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
##A21F08
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5835 0.1728 0.0957)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.169

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.

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