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Ember Shadow Soft
Color detail

Ember Shadow Soft

Orange · Hue 20
Hex
#603F2F
RGB
rgb(96, 63, 47)
HSL
hsl(20, 34%, 28%)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 34%, 51%, 62%)
Metrics
S 34% · L 28%
Contrast (WCAG)
on white
9.3:1AA
on black
2.2:1Fail
Save to journalSign in to saveStart palette from thisRecent trail

About this color

Ember Shadow Soft (#603F2F) belongs to the orange family — hue 20°, 34% saturation, 28% lightness. Copy the hex, RGB, or HSL value above, or paste the CSS custom property below into your stylesheet to reference this color directly.

CSS
:root {
  --colorarchive-ember-shadow-soft: #603F2F;
  --colorarchive-ember-shadow-soft-hsl: hsl(20, 34%, 28%);
  --colorarchive-ember-shadow-soft-rgb: rgb(96, 63, 47);
}

AI Color Names

Let AI suggest alternative poetic names for this color in English and Chinese.

Design Context

EarthyArtisanalGrounded
Common in

Coffee & Bakery · Craft & Handmade · Outdoor Gear

Pairs well with

Olive green, warm cream, or slate gray for organic, natural palettes

Design tip

Great for artisanal brands and rustic interfaces. Combines well with textured backgrounds and serif typography.

Cultural context ▶

Burnt orange and terra cotta evoke earthiness, autumn, and craftsmanship. Popular in Southwestern and Mediterranean design.

Color Origins

Orange family

Citrus, fire, and the only color named after a fruit.

Heritage

Orange is unusual: in English the color was named after the fruit, not the other way around — before the fruit reached Europe in the 16th century, this hue was simply 'yellow-red'. Earlier pigments included realgar (toxic), saffron (priceless), and orpiment. Cadmium orange, introduced in the 19th century, gave painters from the Impressionists onward a stable, brilliant orange that didn't fade or poison.

Across cultures

In Hindu and Buddhist tradition saffron orange marks renunciation — the robe of monks across Theravada and Tibetan lineages. The Dutch House of Orange-Nassau gave the Netherlands a national identity color, still worn at football matches and on King's Day. In Ireland, orange is the Protestant counterpart to green's Catholic association — the country's flag literally encodes the divide. Halloween's orange-and-black is a 20th-century American invention that has since gone global.

In the wild

Hermès orange is a brand asset traceable to a 1942 wartime cardboard shortage. Penguin Books used orange-and-white spines as a class signal — fiction was always orange. Nickelodeon, Fanta, and easyJet all chose orange for the same reason: it reads playful and consumer-friendly while staying outside the more crowded red and yellow lanes. NASA flight suits use International Orange specifically because nothing in nature matches it, making astronauts maximally visible against any background.

How it reads

Orange is warm without the urgency of red. It signals appetite (used heavily in fast food), creativity, and approachability. At low saturation it becomes terracotta, rust, or apricot — earthy palettes for hospitality and craft. At high saturation it reads as a sport, energy drink, or warning hazard. Orange and teal is the most common modern film-grade pairing; the contrast between warm skin tones and cool shadows is engineered for it.

This particular tone

A deep, weighted version of the hue — formal, considered, and pairs especially well with off-white and warm metallic accents.

Lightness band: At this depth the hue starts behaving like a neutral — it can substitute for black in many contexts while still carrying a faint chromatic temperature. It pairs especially well with off-whites and warm metallics.

Saturation band: The clear, mid-saturation register is the most common identity sweet spot — saturated enough to register as a 'real' color, restrained enough not to fight typography or photography placed over it.

Brands using a similar color

Within the public brand-guidelines reference catalog, these are the closest matches to #603F2F.

  • Aesopprimary
    Aesop Amber · #5C2E1F
    →
  • Airbnbneutral
    Hof Gray · #484848
    →
  • Xiaohongshu 小红书neutral
    Slate Text · #333333
    →

Cultures using a similar color

From the cultural-palette catalog, these regions feature a color close to #603F2F.

  • IrelandPeat Brown
    #604024 · Cut turf bog, Mayo + Connemara
    →
  • VietnamPho Broth Brown
    #5C3A21 · Anise-and-cinnamon star, slow simmer
    →
  • France (Paris)Bordeaux Wine
    #5C2E2A · Bordeaux region red wine
    →

Tonal strip

All lightness levels at this hue and saturation. Click any to navigate.

Palette moves

Instead of stopping at one swatch, use nearby, opposite, and tonal neighbors to branch into a broader palette.

Lighter companion
Ember Dusk Soft
#744D39 · hsl(20, 34%, 34%)
Darker companion
Ember Nocturne Soft
#442D22 · hsl(20, 34%, 20%)
Complementary counterpoint
Azure Shadow Soft
#2F4F60 · hsl(200, 34%, 28%)
Analogous lead
Saffron Shadow Soft
#60542F · hsl(45, 34%, 28%)
Analogous echo
Crimson Shadow Soft
#602F2F · hsl(0, 34%, 28%)
Triadic +120°
Seafoam Shadow Soft
#2F603F · hsl(140, 34%, 28%)
Triadic +240°
Orchid Shadow Soft
#3F2F60 · hsl(260, 34%, 28%)
Split-comp +150°
Lagoon Shadow Soft
#2F6058 · hsl(170, 34%, 28%)
Split-comp +210°
Indigo Shadow Soft
#2F3760 · hsl(230, 34%, 28%)
Export preview
Base: Ember Shadow Soft #603F2F
Lighter companion: Ember Dusk Soft #744D39
Darker companion: Ember Nocturne Soft #442D22
Complementary counterpoint: Azure Shadow Soft #2F4F60
Analogous lead: Saffron Shadow Soft #60542F
Analogous echo: Crimson Shadow Soft #602F2F
Triadic +120°: Seafoam Shadow Soft #2F603F
Triadic +240°: Orchid Shadow Soft #3F2F60
Split-comp +150°: Lagoon Shadow Soft #2F6058
Split-comp +210°: Indigo Shadow Soft #2F3760

Compare

See how Ember Shadow Soft compares side by side with related colors.

vsEmber Dusk SoftvsEmber Nocturne SoftvsAzure Shadow SoftvsSaffron Shadow SoftvsCrimson Shadow SoftvsSeafoam Shadow Soft

Nearest neighbors

The closest archive matches by hue, saturation, and lightness.

Search by hex
Nearby match
Ember Shadow Dust
#5A4135 · hsl(20, 26%, 28%)
Nearby match
Ember Dusk Soft
#744D39 · hsl(20, 34%, 34%)
Nearby match
Vermillion Shadow Soft
#603B2F · hsl(15, 34%, 28%)
Nearby match
Tangerine Shadow Soft
#60432F · hsl(25, 34%, 28%)
Nearby match
Ember Nocturne Soft
#442D22 · hsl(20, 34%, 20%)
Nearby match
Ember Shadow Muted
#54433B · hsl(20, 18%, 28%)

Accessible pairings

Archive colors that meet WCAG contrast standards when paired with this color. Use as text-on-background or background-on-text.

Contrast checker
AAA8.9:1
Azure Veil Faint
#F9FAFA
AAA8.9:1
Azure Veil Muted
#F9FAFB
AAA8.9:1
Azure Veil Dust
#F9FAFB
AAA8.9:1
Azure Veil Soft
#F8FAFC
AAA9:1
Azure Veil Clear
#F7FBFD
AAA9:1
Azure Veil Vivid
#F6FBFE

Color Vision Simulation

How this color appears with different color vision deficiencies.

Full simulator
Deuteranopia
#555834
Protanopia
#545333
Tritanopia
#5F3737
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Appears in collections
Verdigris & CopperBurnt ClayHarvest Amber