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Surveyed Redwood

#a45a57
Notes

Surveyed Redwood (#A45A57) is a true red with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (2°, 31%, 49%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. 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
#a45a57
RGB
rgb(164, 90, 87)
HSL
hsl(2, 31%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(2 34% 36%)
OKLCH
oklch(55.3% 0.098 23.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6042 0.3674 0.3501)
HSV
hsv(2, 47%, 64%)
LAB
lab(46.84% 29.92 15.21)
LCH
lch(46.84% 33.56 26.95)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 45%, 47%, 36%)

Etymology

Surveyed
adjective

Old French surveer, to look upon — past-participle of survey. As a color modifier, surveyed implies a clear-and-measured-and-coordinated quality, the crisp color of Mason-Dixon-Line-and-Royal-Navy-Hydrographic scientific-and-cadastral land-and-sea surveying tradition. Sits at the crisp-and-mapped end of the grid, parallel to mapped and plotted in usage.

Redwood
noun

Sequoia sempervirens, the coast redwood — the tallest tree species on Earth, native to the coastal fog belt of northern California. Redwood color refers to mature redwood needle foliage: a saturated, slightly cool deep green with the matte finish of fog-adapted needle foliage. Cooler than sequoia.

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.

#a45a57
Original
#6a6656
Protanopia
#7c7556
Deuteranopia
#b1505a
Tritanopia
#6a6a6a
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).
AAon White
5.03:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon Black
4.18:1

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
##A45A57
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6042 0.3674 0.3501)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.098

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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