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Decisive Berg Crimson

#a91e1f
Notes

Decisive Berg Crimson (#A91E1F) is a true red with a warm character. It leans warm, pulling light toward red, orange, and yellow. Naturally inviting, it suits editorial and hospitality contexts. Its HSL profile (360°, 70%, 39%) 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
#a91e1f
RGB
rgb(169, 30, 31)
HSL
hsl(360, 70%, 39%)
HWB
hwb(360 12% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(47.7% 0.174 26.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6086 0.1746 0.1525)
HSV
hsv(360, 82%, 66%)
LAB
lab(36.87% 54.26 36.48)
LCH
lch(36.87% 65.38 33.91)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 82%, 82%, 34%)

Etymology

Decisive
adjective

From the Latin decidere, to cut off — used as a modifier for colors that read as firm and final. Decisive black, decisive red: the implication is that the color has settled on its position and won't drift. Sits in the bold-bucket corner alongside resolute, with a slightly sharper edge.

Berg
modifier

Norwegian isberg, mountain-of-ice. As a color modifier, berg implies an iceberg-and-Antarctic-tabular-ice quality, the visual register of Antarctic-and-Greenland-iceberg hand-iceberg-and-Antarctic-tabular-ice Antarctic-and-Greenland-iceberg-and-Larsen-Ice-Shelf berg-and-iceberg-and-Antarctic-tabular-ice surfaces under Antarctic-and-Greenland-iceberg-and-Larsen-Ice-Shelf Ross-Sea-and-Weddell-Sea-and-Disko-Bay tabular-iceberg-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to floe and icicle 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.

#a91e1f
Original
#4b441d
Protanopia
#6d6118
Deuteranopia
#bb0021
Tritanopia
#3c3c3c
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
7.26:1
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
2.89:1

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
##A91E1F
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6086 0.1746 0.1525)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.174

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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