Red, crimson, scarlet: which one do you mean?
#FF0000 is the red every browser draws for the CSS keyword red. It is also the loudest red a normal screen can show, which is why it rarely survives into a finished design. Most named reds are this colour pushed towards orange, towards blue, or simply made darker.
| Name | HEX | How it differs from pure red |
|---|---|---|
| Red (CSS) | #FF0000 | The reference point: hue 0°, full saturation |
| Scarlet | #FF2400 | A little green added, so it leans towards orange (hue 8°) |
| Crimson (CSS) | #DC143C | Leans towards blue (hue 348°) and is slightly darker |
| Firebrick (CSS) | #B22222 | Muted and darker; reads as brick rather than signal red |
| Dark red (CSS) | #8B0000 | Same hue as red at roughly half the brightness |
Scarlet's value comes from the colour-name list this site uses; the others are CSS keywords. If someone asks for “a warmer red”, they usually mean something like scarlet. “A deeper red” usually means crimson or darker. There is a separate page on crimson if that is the one you are after.
Text on red: the 4.00 problem
White text on #FF0000 scores 4.00:1. WCAG AA asks for 4.5:1 for normal text, so a white label on a pure red button fails; it only passes as large text (24 px, or 18.66 px bold). Black text does a bit better at 5.25:1, but black on bright red is hard on the eyes in long runs.
The usual fix is to darken the red rather than change the text. Tailwind's red-600, #DC2626, gives white text 4.83:1, and firebrick gives 6.68:1. Both still read unmistakably as red. Test your own pair in the contrast checker.
Colours that go with red
Red with black and white is the classic poster and sale-sign combination. Red with navy and white is the flag palette shared by the UK, the US, France and many others, so it reads as patriotic in a lot of places. Red and gold together carry a strong festive meaning in Chinese New Year design. The screen complement of red is cyan, #00FFFF; that pairing vibrates at full strength, so soften one of the two.
Red in print
#FF0000 sits outside what standard CMYK printing can reproduce. The simple conversion gives 0% cyan, 100% magenta, 100% yellow, but on paper that comes out as a slightly duller, orange-leaning red. If an exact red matters, for a logo for example, ask the printer for a spot colour rather than trusting a screen value.
Questions
What is the RGB code for red?
rgb(255, 0, 0). In HSL it is hsl(0, 100%, 50%), which makes it easy to get lighter or darker reds by changing only the last number.
Is #FF0000 the same as the red in my logo?
Probably not. Brand reds are almost always adjusted. Pick the exact value from your logo file with the colour picker instead of assuming pure red.