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Dense Tooled Crimson

#b03a3f
Notes

Dense Tooled Crimson (#B03A3F) is a true red with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (357°, 50%, 46%) 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
#b03a3f
RGB
rgb(176, 58, 63)
HSL
hsl(357, 50%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(357 23% 31%)
OKLCH
oklch(52.0% 0.153 21.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6379 0.2608 0.2618)
HSV
hsv(357, 67%, 69%)
LAB
lab(42.18% 48.17 23.92)
LCH
lch(42.18% 53.79 26.41)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 67%, 64%, 31%)

Etymology

Dense
adjective

Latin dēnsus, thick / crowded — sharing root with English condense. As a color modifier, dense implies a saturated-and-tightly-packed quality where the hue carries maximum pigmentation per visual unit-of-area. Sits at the bold-and-saturated end of the grid, parallel to thick and concentrated in usage.

Tooled
modifier

Old French tōl, implement. As a color modifier, tooled implies a hand-worked-and-detailed quality, the visual register of Renaissance-and-Florentine-tooled-leather hand-worked-and-stamped-and-engraved tooled-leather-and-bookbinding-and-saddle-and-belt hand-worked surfaces under Renaissance-and-Florentine hand-tooled-leather workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to carved and inlaid 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.

#b03a3f
Original
#59543e
Protanopia
#776d3c
Deuteranopia
#c11e3d
Tritanopia
#535353
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
5.96:1
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
3.52:1

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
##B03A3F
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6379 0.2608 0.2618)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.153

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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