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Grounded Salve Crimson

#b53028
Notes

Grounded Salve Crimson (#B53028) 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 (3°, 64%, 43%) 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
#b53028
RGB
rgb(181, 48, 40)
HSL
hsl(3, 64%, 43%)
HWB
hwb(3 16% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(51.5% 0.171 28.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6540 0.2319 0.1875)
HSV
hsv(3, 78%, 71%)
LAB
lab(41.37% 52.58 36.79)
LCH
lch(41.37% 64.17 34.98)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 73%, 78%, 29%)

Etymology

Grounded
adjective

Old English grund, bottom / foundation — past-participle of ground. As a color modifier, grounded implies a saturated-and-foundational quality where the hue anchors the surrounding palette through its weighty presence. Sits at the bold-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to centered and anchored.

Salve
modifier

Latin salve, hail-or-be-well. As a color modifier, salve implies a Latin-greeting-and-Salve-Regina-and-Roman-salute quality, the visual register of Salve-Regina-and-Pompeii-salve hand-Latin-greeting-and-Salve-Regina-and-Roman-salute Salve-Regina-and-Pompeii-salve-and-Roman-doormat-mosaic salve-and-Latin-greeting surfaces under Salve-Regina-and-Pompeii-salve-and-Roman-doormat-mosaic Pompeian-mosaic-and-Marian-antiphon Roman-greeting-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to ave and pax 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.

#b53028
Original
#584f26
Protanopia
#796c22
Deuteranopia
#c70030
Tritanopia
#4c4c4c
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
6.14:1
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
3.42:1

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
##B53028
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6540 0.2319 0.1875)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.171

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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