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Tough Capricorn Crimson

#b22f20
Notes

Tough Capricorn Crimson (#B22F20) 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 (6°, 70%, 41%) 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
#b22f20
RGB
rgb(178, 47, 32)
HSL
hsl(6, 70%, 41%)
HWB
hwb(6 13% 30%)
OKLCH
oklch(50.8% 0.170 30.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6431 0.2273 0.1634)
HSV
hsv(6, 82%, 70%)
LAB
lab(40.58% 51.71 40.17)
LCH
lch(40.58% 65.48 37.84)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 74%, 82%, 30%)

Etymology

Tough
adjective

Old English tōh, firm / tenacious — sharing root with German zäh. As a color modifier, tough implies a saturated-and-resilient quality where the hue resists fading-and-modulation through its strong pigmentation. Sits at the bold-and-resilient end of the grid, parallel to rugged and hardy in usage.

Capricorn
modifier

Latin capricornus, horned-goat-of-the-zodiac. As a color modifier, capricorn implies a sea-goat-and-earth-sign-and-Saturn-ruled-cardinal-earth quality, the visual register of Hellenic-Capricorn-and-Pan-sea-goat hand-sea-goat-and-earth-sign-and-Saturn-ruled-cardinal-earth Hellenic-Capricorn-and-Pan-sea-goat-and-Babylonian-Suhurmašu capricorn-and-sea-goat-and-earth-sign surfaces under Hellenic-Capricorn-and-Pan-sea-goat-and-Babylonian-Suhurmašu winter-solstice-and-December-and-January cardinal-earth-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to sagittarius and aquarius 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.

#b22f20
Original
#574d1d
Protanopia
#776a19
Deuteranopia
#c4002d
Tritanopia
#4a4a4a
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
6.32:1
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
3.32:1

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
##B22F20
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6431 0.2273 0.1634)
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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