Imperial Carmine
Imperial Carmine (#AA0C1E) is a true 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 (353°, 87%, 36%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid 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
From the Latin imperialis, of the empire — applied to color since the medieval period for the hues reserved for sovereigns and empires: imperial purple of Tyrian dye, imperial yellow of Ming-dynasty porcelain. As a modifier, imperial implies saturation combined with the institutional weight of a color owned by a court. Sits in the bold-and-deep corner, alongside royal.
The deep red-purple dye extracted from cochineal scale insects (Dactylopius coccus) — harvested in pre-Columbian Mexico and shipped to Europe by the Spanish empire as an export second only to silver. The color refers to fresh carmine pigment in solution: a saturated, slightly cool deep red-purple with the brilliance of a dye thirty times stronger than kermes. Cooler than crimson, warmer than wine, with the colonial-trade weight of a pigment that funded an empire.
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.
This color is chromatic enough that authoring it as P3 native (instead of clamping to sRGB) gives a perceptibly more saturated render on wide-gamut displays — modern Macs, iPhones, iPads, and most recent OLED laptops.