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Buttressed Cinnamon

#aa5209
Notes

Buttressed Cinnamon (#AA5209) is a true orange 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 (27°, 90%, 35%) 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#aa5209
RGB
rgb(170, 82, 9)
HSL
hsl(27, 90%, 35%)
HWB
hwb(27 4% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(53.9% 0.136 51.2)
HSV
hsv(27, 95%, 67%)
LAB
lab(45.09% 32.33 52.18)
LCH
lch(45.09% 61.38 58.22)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 52%, 95%, 33%)

Etymology

Buttressed
adjective

Old French bouterez, thrusting-mass — past-participle of buttress, derived from bouter (to thrust). As a color modifier, buttressed implies a saturated-and-architecturally-supported quality, the deep-rich color of Gothic-Cathedral flying-buttress-and-rib-vault stone-architecture. Sits at the bold-and-fortified end of the grid, parallel to fortified and reinforced.

Cinnamon
noun

The inner bark of Cinnamomum verum, the Sri Lankan true cinnamon — harvested in thin scrolls and dried into the curled quills familiar from spice shelves. The color is freshly ground cinnamon powder: a warm, slightly dusty red-brown that sits between rust and cocoa. Warmer than walnut, drier than caramel, with the resinous warmth of a spice that has driven trade routes since the Roman 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

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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.

#aa5209
Original
#6c5e00
Protanopia
#817205
Deuteranopia
#bb3e46
Tritanopia
#5f5f5f
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
5.36:1
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
3.92:1

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