Sharp Amber
Sharp Amber (#DD6D51) 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 (12°, 67%, 59%) 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.
Etymology
Old English scearp, cutting, pointed — applied metaphorically to color since the seventeenth century for hues that read as definite and edge-defined. Sharp red, sharp green: the implication is saturation combined with high-contrast crispness. Sits in the bright-bucket center alongside crisp and clear, with a slightly more incisive edge.
Fossilized tree resin — pine and conifer sap that flowed sixty million years ago and slowly polymerized in Baltic and Dominican forests. The color refers to a polished cabochon of true Baltic amber: a warm, slightly translucent gold-orange with the depth of resin and the occasional inclusion of trapped insects. Softer than honey, deeper than topaz, with the mineral light of a fossil that still feels organic.
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.