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Steady Redwood

#a85d4d
Notes

Steady Redwood (#A85D4D) 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 (11°, 37%, 48%) 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
#a85d4d
RGB
rgb(168, 93, 77)
HSL
hsl(11, 37%, 48%)
HWB
hwb(11 30% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(56.2% 0.102 33.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6193 0.3793 0.3175)
HSV
hsv(11, 54%, 66%)
LAB
lab(47.87% 28.90 22.63)
LCH
lch(47.87% 36.71 38.06)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 45%, 54%, 34%)

Etymology

Steady
adjective

Old English stede, place, position — drifted to mean firm and unmoving. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as reliable rather than dramatic. Steady gray, steady green: moderate saturation combined with optical calmness. Sits in the crisp-bucket center alongside settled.

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.

#a85d4d
Original
#6f684b
Protanopia
#81784c
Deuteranopia
#b65159
Tritanopia
#6c6c6c
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
4.84:1
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
4.34:1

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
##A85D4D
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6193 0.3793 0.3175)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.102

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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