A vivid medium red, black text passes AA
What color is red?
The CSS named color red is #ff0000, or rgb(255 0 0): a vivid medium red in plain words. Black text on it reaches 5.25:1, passing WCAG AA, and Recolor (recolor.page) can put it on a real page.
Last updated
| Format | Value |
|---|---|
| Keyword | red |
| Hex | #ff0000 |
| RGB | rgb(255 0 0) |
| HSL | hsl(0 100% 50%) |
| OKLCH | oklch(62.8% 0.258 29.2) |
| Nearest Tailwind color | red-500 #fb2c36, 0.028 away in OKLab |
| White text | 4.00:1: AA fails, AAA fails, large text passes |
| Black text | 5.25:1: AA passes, AAA fails, large text passes |
About red
Measured in OKLCH, red comes out at lightness 62.8%, chroma 0.258 and hue 29.2 degrees: a vivid medium red. CSS Color 4 counts it among the 16 names that came from the VGA palette and then HTML; most of the other names came from the X11 color system.
Its lightness is 50% in HSL and 62.8% in OKLCH, 13 points apart; only the second tracks how light it looks. No CSS keyword matches it; orangered (#ff4500) is the nearest, 0.050 away in OKLab, a clear step off.
Black is the ink for red: 5.25:1 passes AA for body text, where white stops at 4.00:1. Its neighbors in the hue-sorted list of names are rosybrown and indianred.
The closest Tailwind 4.3.3 color is red-500, 0.028 away in OKLab, so bg-red-500 comes near; bg-[#ff0000] gives the color itself.
Tints and shades
- #ffe1da
- #ffc1b6
- #ffa191
- #ff7e6c
- #ff5544
- #ff0000
- #c80000
- #940000
- #630000
- #360000
- #0f0000
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
- #ff0000
- #ffd7ca
- #3c0e09
- #97d0df
- #006478
Around red as swatch 1, Recolor's generator made a complementary palette, built on the hue opposite: #ffd7ca, #3c0e09, #97d0df, #006478, drawn from a seed fixed by its hex. Open it in Recolor.
Using red
As a text color, red on a black page gives the same 5.25:1.
.notice {
background-color: red; /* #ff0000 */
color: black; /* 5.25:1 */
}Common questions
Does white text pass WCAG AA on red?
No. White text measures 4.00:1 on red, under AA's 4.5:1; black text measures 5.25:1 and passes.
Can red be written in OKLCH?
Yes: oklch(62.8% 0.258 29.2), computed from #ff0000. A named color is an sRGB color, so its OKLCH value converts back to the same hex.
Is there a named color close to red?
No. The nearest, orangered (#ff4500), is 0.050 away in OKLab, a different color.