A vivid dark red, white text passes AA
What color is darkred?
darkred is a vivid dark red: #8b0000 in hex, rgb(139 0 0). White text on it reaches 10.01:1, passing WCAG AAA. Recolor (recolor.page) shows it on a real page below.
Last updated
| Format | Value |
|---|---|
| Keyword | darkred |
| Hex | #8b0000 |
| RGB | rgb(139 0 0) |
| HSL | hsl(0 100% 27%) |
| OKLCH | oklch(40.0% 0.164 29.2) |
| Nearest Tailwind color | red-900 #82181a, 0.025 away in OKLab |
| White text | 10.01:1: AA passes, AAA passes, large text passes |
| Black text | 2.10:1: AA fails, AAA fails, large text fails |
About darkred
In OKLCH terms darkred has a lightness of 40.0%, a chroma of 0.164 and a hue of 29.2 degrees, a vivid dark red to the eye.
HSL calls its lightness 27%, OKLCH 40.0%: 13 points between a formula and a measure of what the eye sees. Among the CSS keywords, maroon (#800000) comes closest at 0.025 in OKLab, close enough to stand in for it in a sketch.
For text, darkred wants white: 10.01:1 clears even AAA's 7:1, and black at 2.10:1 fails AA. In the hue-sorted table of named colors it sits between brown and maroon.
In Tailwind CSS 4.3.3 the nearest default color is red-900 (#82181a), 0.025 away in OKLab; for the exact color, an arbitrary value such as bg-[#8b0000] works.
Tints and shades
- #f0d8d4
- #dfb1aa
- #cc8b81
- #b86559
- #a33d32
- #8b0000
- #6c0000
- #4e0000
- #320000
- #190000
- #040000
From light to dark: 5 toward white and 5 toward black, mixed in OKLCH a sixth of the way at a time with the hue kept. A step that would repeat its neighbor is left out.
A palette around it
- #8b0000
- #dcb4ae
- #00222b
- #e6daf1
- #997f4f
Locked as the first of five swatches, darkred gets #dcb4ae, #00222b, #e6daf1, #997f4f from Recolor's generator, a free palette, hues spread around the wheel. The seed is its hex, so the palette stays the same. Open it in Recolor.
Using darkred
As a text color, darkred on a white page gives the same 10.01:1.
.notice {
background-color: darkred; /* #8b0000 */
color: white; /* 10.01:1 */
}Common questions
Does white text pass WCAG AA on darkred?
Yes. White text measures 10.01:1 on darkred, above the 4.5:1 that WCAG AA asks of body text, and above AAA's 7:1 too.
Can darkred be written in OKLCH?
Yes: oklch(40.0% 0.164 29.2), computed from #8b0000. A named color is an sRGB color, so its OKLCH value converts back to the same hex.
Is there a named color close to darkred?
Yes: maroon (#800000) is the nearest, 0.025 away in OKLab, then brown at 0.082.