Brown color

Inspect Brown (#A52A2A) in HEX, RGB, HSL, LCH and OKLCH, check its contrast, and copy the value you need.

#a52a2a

Brown

Brown color values

Brown

#A52A2A

White text reads best on this background, at 7.08:1.

Brown is one of the 148 CSS named colors, and resolves to #A52A2A in every browser. In numbers that is rgb(165, 42, 42) and hsl(0, 59%, 41%). Perceptually it is a mid-toned, moderately saturated color: OKLCH puts its lightness at 48% and its chroma at 0.16. It sits in the reds at 26 degrees of OKLCH hue, and reads as a warm color.

White text clears WCAG AA on a Brown background at 7.08:1, and AAA as well. That combination of lightness and chroma makes it a workable mid-tone, the kind of value that lands in the middle of a shade scale.

The closest CSS named colors to Brown, measured with CIEDE2000, are FireBrick (#B22222), DarkRed (#8B0000), Maroon (#800000). If Brown is not quite right, those are the nearest keywords to try before reaching for a custom value.

HEX

#A52A2A

RGB

rgb(165, 42, 42)

HSL

hsl(0, 59%, 41%)

HWB

hwb(0 16% 35%)

CMYK

cmyk(0%, 75%, 75%, 35%)

LAB

lab(38.15 50.38 31.83)

LCH

lch(38.15 59.6 32.29)

OKLCH

oklch(48.06% 0.1597 25.56)

Is Brown accessible?

WCAG asks for 4.5:1 between body text and its background. On #A52A2A white text measures 7.08:1 and black text 2.96:1, so white clears it and black does not.

White text on Brown

WCAG 2.2

7.08:1

APCA

Lc 88

Passes AA body text

Passes AAA body text

Passes AA large text

Black text on Brown

WCAG 2.2

2.96:1

APCA

Lc 20

Fails AA body text

Fails AAA body text

Fails AA large text

Check Brown against any other color in the contrast checker.

Tints and shades of Brown

Brown sits at 48% OKLCH lightness. Holding its hue and chroma and moving only that value carries it up to #FFF6F5 and down to #140000, which keeps the family recognizable instead of letting it drift toward gray the way a plain HSL ramp does.

Tints, toward white

#C74B46

20% lighter

#EA6B63

40% lighter

#FF968D

60% lighter

#FFC8C2

80% lighter

#FFF6F5

100% lighter

Shades, toward black

#8C0A15

20% darker

#6D000B

40% darker

#4D0005

60% darker

#2F0002

80% darker

#140000

100% darker

Build a full accessible scale from #A52A2A in the shade generator.

Colors that go with Brown

Hues rotated around #A52A2A in OKLCH, then pulled back into the sRGB gamut. Each swatch is labelled with the nearest CSS named color so you have a keyword to start from.

Complementary

Brown sits at 26 degrees. Rotating it a half turn lands on 206 degrees, the hue directly opposite. It is the strongest pairing you can make without changing lightness, and the one most likely to vibrate if you use both at full chroma.

Analogous

The neighbors of Brown at 356 and 56 degrees. They stay close enough to read as the same family, which is what you want for hover states, secondary surfaces and gradients.

Triadic

26, 146 and 266 degrees divide the wheel into thirds. Balanced enough to carry a whole palette without one color dominating the other two.

Split complementary

Instead of the complement at 206 degrees, this pair flanks it at 176 and 236. You keep most of the contrast of a complementary pairing while losing the harshness.

Explore more combinations around Brown on the color wheel.

How Brown looks with color blindness

The biggest shift is under deuteranopia, where #A52A2A reads as #574C29, 29.9 CIEDE2000 units away. If Brown is the only thing marking a state or a series, roughly one viewer in twelve will miss it.

Protanopia

#3D382A

Deuteranopia

#574C29

Tritanopia

#C4202B

Achromatopsia

#444444

Colors similar to Brown

The nearest CSS keywords to #A52A2A, ranked by perceptual distance rather than by how close their hex digits happen to look.