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Authoritative Bruciato

#b55b2b
Notes

Authoritative Bruciato (#B55B2B) is a true orange 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 (21°, 62%, 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b55b2b
RGB
rgb(181, 91, 43)
HSL
hsl(21, 62%, 44%)
HWB
hwb(21 17% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(57.2% 0.132 46.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6641 0.3757 0.2135)
HSV
hsv(21, 76%, 71%)
LAB
lab(48.86% 33.05 43.01)
LCH
lch(48.86% 54.25 52.46)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 50%, 76%, 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.

Bruciato
noun

The Italian word for burnt — used in pigment vocabulary for terra di Siena bruciata (burnt sienna) and terra d'ombra bruciata (burnt umber). Bruciato implies a color that has been concentrated by heat. The color refers to a Sienese bruciato-pigment: a warm, slightly muted deep orange-brown with the matte finish of fired iron-oxide pigment.

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.

#b55b2b
Original
#746825
Protanopia
#8a7c29
Deuteranopia
#c64851
Tritanopia
#6b6b6b
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
4.67:1
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
4.50:1

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
##B55B2B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6641 0.3757 0.2135)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.132

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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