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Lionhearted Brick

#aa3b2b
Notes

Lionhearted Brick (#AA3B2B) 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 (8°, 60%, 42%) 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
#aa3b2b
RGB
rgb(170, 59, 43)
HSL
hsl(8, 60%, 42%)
HWB
hwb(8 17% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(50.8% 0.149 30.9)
HSV
hsv(8, 75%, 67%)
LAB
lab(40.98% 44.58 34.08)
LCH
lch(40.98% 56.12 37.40)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 65%, 75%, 33%)

Etymology

Lionhearted
adjective

Old English lēona-heorte, lion's-heart — referring to Richard I Lionheart (1157–1199). As a color modifier, lionhearted implies a saturated-and-courageous-and-royal quality, the deep-rich color of Crusader-period English Plantagenet-royalty armorial bearings. Sits at the bold-and-chivalrous end of the grid, parallel to valiant and heroic.

Brick
noun

Fired clay, mineral red. The color refers to common building brick — iron-rich earthenware kilned to the specific dusky red-orange of a Victorian terrace, a Roman aqueduct, an adobe wall in New Mexico. Less saturated than ruby, warmer than burgundy, with a chalky cast that reads as architectural rather than decorative.

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

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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.

#aa3b2b
Original
#5a5129
Protanopia
#766a27
Deuteranopia
#bb1e38
Tritanopia
#515151
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
6.23:1
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
3.37:1

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