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Assured Arbor Crimson

#b4332b
Notes

Assured Arbor Crimson (#B4332B) 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 (4°, 61%, 44%) 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
#b4332b
RGB
rgb(180, 51, 43)
HSL
hsl(4, 61%, 44%)
HWB
hwb(4 17% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(51.6% 0.167 28.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6509 0.2405 0.1970)
HSV
hsv(4, 76%, 71%)
LAB
lab(41.61% 51.27 35.30)
LCH
lch(41.61% 62.25 34.54)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 72%, 76%, 29%)

Etymology

Assured
adjective

Old French aseürer, to give assurance — past-participle of assure. As a color modifier, assured implies a saturated-and-confident quality where the hue carries unwavering certainty about its own visual identity. Sits at the bold-and-confident end of the grid, parallel to certain and poised.

Arbor
modifier

Latin arbor, tree-or-trunk. As a color modifier, arbor implies a Latin-tree-and-vine-arbor quality, the visual register of Pliny-Natural-History-and-Roman-villa-arbor hand-Latin-tree-and-vine-arbor Pliny-Natural-History-and-Roman-villa-arbor-and-pergola arbor-and-Latin-tree-and-vine-arbor surfaces under Pliny-Natural-History-and-Roman-villa-arbor-and-pergola Pompeii-and-Tuscan-pergola-and-grape-arbor leafy-shade-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to via and domus 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.

#b4332b
Original
#595029
Protanopia
#796c26
Deuteranopia
#c60032
Tritanopia
#4e4e4e
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
6.09:1
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
3.45:1

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
##B4332B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6509 0.2405 0.1970)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.167

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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