Shielded Via Rose
Shielded Via Rose (#A4072C) 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 (346°, 92%, 34%) 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 teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English scild, shield — past-participle of shield, sharing root with German Schild. As a color modifier, shielded implies a saturated-and-protected-and-defensive quality, the deep-rich color of medieval-knight armorial-shield-and-coat-of-arms heraldic display. Sits at the bold-and-fortified end of the grid, parallel to armored and bastioned.
Latin via, road-or-way. As a color modifier, via implies a Latin-road-and-Roman-Via-Appia quality, the visual register of Roman-Via-Appia-and-Via-Aemilia hand-Latin-road-and-Roman-Via-Appia Roman-Via-Appia-and-Via-Aemilia-and-Via-Egnatia via-and-Latin-road surfaces under Roman-Via-Appia-and-Via-Aemilia-and-Via-Egnatia Republican-Rome-and-imperial-road-network basalt-paved-Roman-road-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to arbor and domus in usage.
The Latin rosa, the Greek rhodon, the Persian gul — every European language has a different name for the same flower and the same color. Rose covers the spectrum from blush to fuchsia depending on the cultivar, but in pigment shorthand it means a cool, slightly bluish red — the inside of a damask petal, the dye that washes out of madder root.
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.
Wide gamut
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.
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.