Authoritative Tangelo
Authoritative Tangelo (#BC4D01) is a true orange with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (24°, 99%, 37%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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.
Etymology
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.
A twentieth-century citrus hybrid — Citrus × tangelo — crossed from a tangerine and a pomelo or grapefruit. The color refers to the skin of a Minneola or Honeybell tangelo: a saturated red-orange that's deeper than tangerine and warmer than orange, with the pull-knob shape that distinguishes the fruit visually. Bred in the early 1900s by the USDA for the Florida juice industry.
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.