Imperial Red Color Codes

Imperial Red is a mid-tone, saturated red with the hex code #ED2939, RGB values of 237, 41, 57 and an HSL value of hsl(355, 84%, 55%).

HEX	#ED2939
RGB	237, 41, 57
HSL	hsl(355, 84%, 55%)
HSV	355°, 83%, 93%
CMYK	0%, 83%, 76%, 7%
LAB	51.71, 71.43, 41.54
CIELCHuv	51.71, 147.84, 10.47°

Nearest Pantone: PMS 185 C ΔE 5.1 · approximate
Nearest CSS name: crimson ΔE 9.2

Source Wikipedia, List of colors

Imperial Red Color Hex Code

The Imperial Red color hex code is #ED2939. Those six digits are three pairs, ED for red, 29 for green and 39 for blue, which is the same triplet a browser reads from the CSS value below.

#ED2939

Imperial Red Color RGB Code

The Imperial Red RGB code is rgb(237, 41, 57). Red carries the most light at 237 of 255, which is what puts this color where it sits on the wheel.

rgb(237, 41, 57)

Imperial Red Color HSV Code

The Imperial Red HSV code is 355°, 83%, 93%. Read it as a hue of 355 degrees, 83% saturation and 93% value, which is the form most color pickers use because moving one number changes one thing.

355°, 83%, 93%

Imperial Red Color CIELChuv Code

The Imperial Red CIELCHuv code is 51.71, 147.84, 10.47°. Unlike hex or RGB this one is perceptual: lightness 52 means mid-toned to the eye rather than to the screen, and chroma 148 is how far it sits from grey.

51.71, 147.84, 10.47°

Tonal scale

What are Imperial Red Color Palettes?

A shade mixes toward black, a tint toward white, a tone toward grey. Every step keeps the hue and is copy-ready.

Shades, toward black

Tints, toward white

Tones, toward grey

Open in the shades & tints generator →

Palettes

What are Imperial Red Color Palette Codes?

Each of these is a hue rotation from #ED2939. They are generated, not curated, so they are exact.

Complementary

Half a turn away is #29EDDD, a light, saturated teal. This is the widest separation the wheel offers, and the reason complementary pairs are the default for anything that must stand out. Both are saturated, so give the complement much less area than the base or the two will fight.

Analogous

Either side sit #ED299B and #ED7B29, 30 degrees out. Low tension by construction: useful when you need several related tones that still feel like one choice.

Triadic

#39ED29 and #2939ED complete an even 120 degree split. Three fully independent hues, so one has to lead: keep this base dominant and let the other two appear in small quantities.

Split-complementary

Instead of the direct complement, this takes the two hues either side of it: #29ED7B and #299BED. Almost the same contrast, without the edge shimmer a true complementary pair produces at high saturation.

Tetradic

Two complementary pairs forming a rectangle: this base with #29EDDD, and #9BED29 with #7B29ED. The richest of the five and the hardest to balance, so treat this base as the lead and hold the other three well back.

See these on the color wheel →

Accessibility

Measured against white and against black, with a separate verdict for each element type. Small text, large text and UI components have different thresholds, so one pass or fail for the whole color would be wrong roughly a third of the time.

White background

4.22:1

4.22

contrast ratio on white background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Fails	Fails
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Passes	Fails
UI component needs 3:1	Passes	n/a

Black background

4.98:1

4.98

contrast ratio on black background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Passes	Fails
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Passes	Passes
UI component needs 3:1	Passes	n/a

Against white Imperial Red reaches 4.22:1, enough for large text and UI borders, but short of the 4.5:1 that body copy needs. Darken it for anything set small. Text placed on it should be black, which gives 4.98:1. It is a highly saturated color, so it will dominate anything it sits beside. Give it space rather than surrounding it with other strong colors.

Check Imperial Red against another color →

Color vision

How Imperial Red looks with color blindness

Around 300 million people see color differently from the way it is specified. Each card shows the actual color beside how it appears, and how common that form of vision is.

Protanopia

About 1% of men

actual

#BAB936

Imperial Red changes substantially here. ΔE 91.6

No working red cones. Reds darken sharply and drift toward the same muddy olive as green.

Deuteranopia

About 1% of men

actual

#C2CB35

Imperial Red changes substantially here. ΔE 99.8

No working green cones. With the milder deuteranomaly at nearer 6% of men, this is by far the most common form, and the one worth designing around.

Tritanopia

About 1 in 10,000

actual

#E83332

Imperial Red shifts slightly here. ΔE 5.3

No working blue cones. Blues shift toward green and yellows toward pink. Rare, and unlike the others it is not sex-linked, so it affects men and women equally.

Achromatopsia

About 1 in 30,000

actual

#7B7B7B

Imperial Red changes substantially here. ΔE 82.6

No color vision at all. Also a fair proxy for how the color survives a greyscale print or a failing screen.

To a deuteranope, the most common form, Imperial Red reads as #C2CB35. That is a shift of ΔE 99.8, so it is a different color to roughly one man in sixteen. It sits in the red end of the spectrum, which is exactly where red-green deficiency does its damage. Never pair it with a green of similar lightness to signal a difference in meaning: to a large minority the two become one color. The widest shift is under deuteranopia, at ΔE 99.8. The rule this leads to needs no simulator: never let color be the only thing carrying a message. Add a label, an icon, or a clear difference in lightness, and the problem disappears for everyone.

Simulate a whole palette →

Snippets

Using Imperial Red in code

:root {
  --imperial-red: #ED2939;
}

.example {
  color: var(--imperial-red);
}

// tailwind.config.js
theme: {
  extend: {
    colors: {
      'imperial-red': '#ED2939',
    },
  },
}

// SwiftUI takes 0–1 components, not 0–255.
let imperialRed = Color(
    red: 0.929,
    green: 0.161,
    blue: 0.224
)

<!-- res/values/colors.xml -->
<color name="imperial_red">#ED2939</color>

// Flutter wants ARGB: FF for full opacity, then the hex.
const imperialRed = Color(0xFFED2939);

Meaning

What is the Meaning of Imperial Red Color?

Imperial Red reads as urgency, appetite and alarm. It is saturated enough to dominate anything it sits beside, and at 84% saturation with a perceptual lightness of 52 it behaves as a warm color, which is the practical reason it turns up where it does.

What are Other Names of Imperial Red Color?

The closest CSS keyword is Crimson (#DC143C), though it is not a match: Delta-E 9.2 means the difference is visible side by side. For print the nearest Pantone is PMS 185 C at #E8112D. The name Imperial Red is the one carried by Wikipedia's list of colors.

How is Imperial Red Color Made?

On a screen Imperial Red is made by additive light: 237 red, 41 green and 57 blue out of 255, with red leading and 41 as the floor. In print it is subtractive instead, mixed as 0%, 83%, 76%, 7%. Starting from the pure hue at 355 degrees, Imperial Red is close to the pure hue, with little white or black in it.