800000 (maroon) — RGB, HSL, CMYK and Contrast

Q: What text colour should sit on 800000?

Black gives 1.92:1 and white gives 10.95:1, so white wins at 10.95:1. That clears the 4.5:1 AA threshold for normal text and the 7:1 AAA threshold as well.

Every value recomputed from the hex code · WCAG 2.1 contrast ratios

A red at 25% lightness and 100% saturation, which puts it at 10.95:1 against white and 1.92:1 against black. The tables below give the notation conversions, the tints and shades that keep the hue intact, and the harmonies that pair with it.

800000

Notation conversions

Notation	Value
HEX	`800000`
RGB	rgb(128, 0, 0)
HSL	hsl(0, 100%, 25%)
CMYK	cmyk(0%, 100%, 100%, 50%)
Relative luminance	0.0459
Perceived brightness	15.0 / 100

R=128 G=0 B=0 · hue 0.0° · saturation 100.0% · lightness 25.1%

Contrast against pure white and pure black

Pair this colour with the two extremes to see which is the safer text partner. AA needs 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text; AAA raises that to 7:1 and 4.5:1.

Against	Hex	Ratio	AA text	AA large	AAA text
#FFFFFF	`white`	10.95:1	pass	pass	pass
#000000	`black`	1.92:1	fail	fail	fail

Tints and shades

Lightness moves in ten-point steps while hue and saturation stay fixed, which keeps the colour recognisable in a scale. The last column is the ratio against white text, useful for deciding where a scale stops working as a background.

Step	Hex	HSL	vs white text
shade -30	`#000000`	hsl(0, 100%, 0%)	21.00:1
shade -20	`#1a0000`	hsl(0, 100%, 5%)	20.12:1
shade -10	`#4d0000`	hsl(0, 100%, 15%)	15.96:1
tint +10	`#b30000`	hsl(0, 100%, 35%)	7.20:1
tint +20	`#e60000`	hsl(0, 100%, 45%)	4.81:1
tint +30	`#ff1a1a`	hsl(0, 100%, 55%)	3.88:1

Harmonies

Scheme	Hex
Complementary	`#008080`
Analogous −30	`#800040`
Analogous +30	`#804000`
Triadic −120	`#000080`
Triadic +120	`#008000`

Take the channels apart and the numbers hold together: 128, 0 and 0 average 43, the strongest channel is 128 and the weakest 0, and that span is what pushes saturation to 100.0% at hue 0.0° and lightness 25.1%. Luminance 0.0459 with perceived brightness 15.0 out of 100 is why the white ratio (10.95:1) and the black ratio (1.92:1) diverge by 9.03. Entry 1 of 69, it steps to #000000 at minus thirty and #ff1a1a at plus thirty.

Nearby colours

DC143C crimson FF0000 red FF5722 Deep Orange 500

Frequently asked questions

What text colour should sit on 800000?
Black gives 1.92:1 and white gives 10.95:1, so white wins at 10.95:1. That clears the 4.5:1 AA threshold for normal text and the 7:1 AAA threshold as well.

Do the CMYK numbers match a print workflow?
They are the naive conversion from RGB, which assumes no ink limit, no colour profile and no black generation strategy. Real print work needs a profile-aware conversion; the values here are the ones the converter reports and are best used as a starting point for a designer rather than a press-ready separations file.

Convert any other colour, or test a pair against each other, in the ColrShift colour converter and contrast checker. The colour library groups every entry on this site by hue family.