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Dominant Bow Crimson

#ab2720
Notes

Dominant Bow Crimson (#AB2720) is a true red with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (3°, 68%, 40%) 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
#ab2720
RGB
rgb(171, 39, 32)
HSL
hsl(3, 68%, 40%)
HWB
hwb(3 13% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(48.8% 0.170 28.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6168 0.2001 0.1583)
HSV
hsv(3, 81%, 67%)
LAB
lab(38.23% 52.23 37.41)
LCH
lch(38.23% 64.25 35.61)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 77%, 81%, 33%)

Etymology

Dominant
adjective

Latin dominārī, to rule — present-participle of dominate. As a color modifier, dominant implies a saturated-and-leading quality where the hue claims visual precedence over neighboring colors in the surrounding palette. Sits at the bold-and-imperative end of the grid, parallel to commanding and authoritative.

Bow
modifier

Old Norse bógr, bow / shoulder. As a color modifier, bow implies a ship's-front-prow quality, the visual register of Royal-Navy-and-merchant-marine-bow hand-built ship's-front-prow-and-figurehead bow-and-cutwater maritime-architecture surfaces under ship's-front-bow-and-prow maritime-headway light. Sits at the modifier-and-nautical end of the grid, parallel to prow and hull 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.

#ab2720
Original
#50481e
Protanopia
#71641a
Deuteranopia
#bd0027
Tritanopia
#434343
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
6.90:1
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
3.04:1

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
##AB2720
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6168 0.2001 0.1583)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.170

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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