colors
Back to gallery

Authoritative Mater Hibiscus

#b43752
Notes

Authoritative Mater Hibiscus (#B43752) 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 (347°, 53%, 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 teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b43752
RGB
rgb(180, 55, 82)
HSL
hsl(347, 53%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(347 22% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(52.8% 0.161 11.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6516 0.2530 0.3271)
HSV
hsv(347, 69%, 71%)
LAB
lab(42.84% 52.06 13.18)
LCH
lch(42.84% 53.70 14.21)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 69%, 54%, 29%)

Etymology

Authoritative
adjective

Latin auctōritāt-, authority — adjectival suffix -ive. As a color modifier, authoritative implies a saturated-and-formal-imperative quality where the hue carries decisional weight and institutional credibility. Sits at the bold-and-authoritative end of the grid, parallel to commanding and magisterial in usage.

Mater
modifier

Latin mater, mother. As a color modifier, mater implies a Latin-mother-and-Stabat-Mater-and-Madonna quality, the visual register of Stabat-Mater-and-Pietà-mater hand-Latin-mother-and-Stabat-Mater-and-Madonna Stabat-Mater-and-Pietà-mater-and-Marian-iconography mater-and-Latin-mother surfaces under Stabat-Mater-and-Pietà-mater-and-Marian-iconography Roman-and-Counter-Reformation Madonna-iconographic-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to pater and amor in usage.

Hibiscus
noun

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis — the showy mallow of Pacific gardens, the Hawaiian state flower, the source of the deep red sorrel tea sold across West Africa as bissap. The color refers to a fully open hibiscus petal at midday: a hot, slightly magenta red with the velvet texture of a single-day bloom. By evening the same flower has wilted; by morning it's gone.

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.

#b43752
Original
#565552
Protanopia
#766f4f
Deuteranopia
#c41d42
Tritanopia
#545454
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
5.82:1
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
3.61:1

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
##B43752
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6516 0.2530 0.3271)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.161

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.

Related Colors

Canvas