Steadfast Spar Cardinal
Steadfast Spar Cardinal (#B92130) 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 (354°, 70%, 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 teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English stede-fæst, fixed in place — sharing root with German stetig. As a color modifier, steadfast implies a saturated-and-unwavering quality where the hue maintains its visual character without modulation. Sits at the bold-and-firm end of the grid, parallel to unwavering and firm in usage.
Old Norse sparri, long-pole. As a color modifier, spar implies a long-wooden-pole-for-sail quality, the visual register of Tall-Ship-and-Royal-Navy-spar hand-cut long-wooden-pole-and-spar-for-sail mast-and-yard-and-boom maritime-rigging surfaces under tall-ship-spar-and-yard maritime-rigging light. Sits at the modifier-and-nautical end of the grid, parallel to mast and boom in usage.
Named for the scarlet robes of Roman Catholic cardinals, dyed since the thirteenth century with kermes and later cochineal. The color carries the institutional weight of its source — a saturated red-orange that reads as authority rather than romance. Also the bird (Cardinalis cardinalis) of the American east, whose plumage takes its red from carotenoid pigments in the seeds it eats.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.