Stimulating Madder
Stimulating Madder (#F46C4F) is a true red with a neon character. It sits at the high-saturation edge of its family. Use it sparingly, as signage, accent, or highlight against darker surfaces. Its HSL profile (11°, 88%, 63%) 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 cyan. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin stimulāns, spurring on — present-participle of stimulate, derived from stimulus (a goad). As a color modifier, stimulating implies a saturated-and-arousing-and-attentive quality where the hue increases visual-and-cognitive engagement. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to invigorating and bracing in usage.
Rubia tinctorum, the dyer's madder — the root pigment that fed European red textile production from antiquity until synthetic alizarin replaced it in 1869. Less brilliant than kermes, more lightfast than safflower, madder-dyed wool was the workhorse red of Persian carpets, British redcoats, and Turkish kilim. The color carries that history: a warm, slightly orange red with the matte finish of cloth rather than glaze.
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.