Spirited Coquelicot
Spirited Coquelicot (#F86E9A) is a true red 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 (341°, 91%, 70%) 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 teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
An adjectival form of spirit — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as animate and characterful. Spirited orange, spirited green: the implication is saturation combined with personality, a color that feels like it has agency. Sits at the bright-bucket center alongside lively and vibrant.
The French word for poppy — Papaver rhoeas — the wild red flower of European cereal fields and the unifying flower of French Impressionist painting (especially Monet's Coquelicots, Argenteuil). The color refers to a freshly opened poppy in a Provençal field: a saturated, slightly cool red with the satin finish of single-day petal. Brighter than scarlet, slightly cooler than tomato.
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.