Tints & Shades
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Scale from white (50) through Chocolate (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #7B3F00
- RGB
- rgb(123, 63, 0)
- HSL
- hsl(31, 100%, 24%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.435 0.105 57)
- CMYK
- cmyk(0%, 49%, 100%, 52%)
--color-chocolatebg-[#7B3F00]Accessibility
Score: 96/100On White (#FFF)
8.22:1
On Black (#000)
2.55:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
7.54:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #7B3F00
color: #7B3F00
bg-[#7B3F00] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #7B3F00
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Viridian Blue
#0F56A0
Split-Complementary
Color Meaning & Psychology
Chocolate brown is the color that most immediately triggers appetite for sweetness — used by Cadbury, Hershey, and every artisanal chocolatier. Its warmth and richness signal indulgence and quality without the cold exclusivity of black.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Chocolate is applied in professional design.
- Coffee shops and specialty beverage brands
- Chocolate and premium confectionery
- Outdoor gear and hiking equipment
- Furniture and home furnishing brands
- Craft beer and artisanal food products
- Leather goods and accessories
- Organic and natural food products
- Heritage and classic whiskey/spirits brands
Accessibility Considerations
Normal Text
Passes AA
4.5:1 minimum required
Large Text
Passes AA Large
3:1 minimum required
UI Components
Meets 1.4.11
3:1 for non-text UI
Chocolate is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (8.22:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #7B3F00;Text
color: #7B3F00;Border
border: 2px solid #7B3F00;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #7B3F0040;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #7B3F00, #af6a2e);Tailwind-style
--color-chocolate: #7B3F00;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Chocolate without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#7B3F00]Text
text-[#7B3F00]Border
border-[#7B3F00]Ring
ring-[#7B3F00]Fill
fill-[#7B3F00]From (gradient)
from-[#7B3F00]Via (gradient)
via-[#7B3F00]To (gradient)
to-[#7B3F00]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Chocolate design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-chocolate: #7B3F00;
--color-chocolate-rgb: 123, 63, 0;
--color-chocolate-hsl: 31, 100%, 24%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-chocolate: #7B3F00; $color-chocolate-rgb: 123, 63, 0; $color-chocolate-hsl: 31, 100%, 24%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'chocolate': '#7B3F00',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-chocolate: #7B3F00;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"chocolate": {
"value": "#7B3F00",
"type": "color",
"description": "Chocolate — #7B3F00"
}
}Related Palettes & Combinations
Color Combinations
More brown colors
View all →What Does Chocolate Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Color psychology research consistently places brown as the most "trustworthy" of the warm tones—not because it demands attention like red or commands authority like navy, but because it simply asks to be believed. Chocolate's dark quality makes stability its natural register.
- Across color psychology research, brown consistently tests high for "authenticity" associations, making Chocolate a reliable vehicle for stability in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on brown-family tones to project naturalness and warmth—values that Chocolate communicates in a dark key.
- At 100% saturation, Chocolate reads as vivid—Richer, more saturated terracottas and warm siennas carry a Mediterranean, artisanal energy—earthy but vibrant, associated with ceramic crafts and sun-baked landscapes.
- Chocolate's dark lightness (24%) shifts its psychological register: Deep chocolate, espresso, and mahogany tones carry luxurious weight—rich, sophisticated, and associated with premium craft materials and indulgent flavors.
In a world of loud design, Chocolate is a deliberate quietness. It says: this is real.
How to Use Chocolate in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
In digital design, Chocolate adds textural warmth that screens often lack. It fights the flat, cold quality of purely digital palettes and brings a human, analog quality to interfaces.
- Avoid: technology products, clinical healthcare, and anything that needs to project cleanliness or digital precision.
- Color harmonies: Chocolate's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Chocolate's vivid saturation (100%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.
- As a dark tone, Chocolate creates maximum contrast with white and light neutrals—excellent for creating premium dark-mode sections, bold headers, and high-drama brand moments
- Typography: Chocolate works as a background behind white text but requires careful sizing—test at intended heading and body sizes before finalizing.
In a world of loud design, Chocolate is a deliberate quietness. It says: this is real.
Chocolate Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Chocolate (#7B3F00) achieves a 8.22:1 contrast ratio with white text, surpassing the WCAG 2.1 AAA threshold of 7:1. This exceptional contrast qualifies it for body text, UI components at any size, and all accessibility-sensitive interface contexts. Relative luminance: 7.8%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 8.22:1 — AAA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 2.55:1 — Fail
- Best text color on Chocolate background: White (#FFFFFF) at 8.22:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 7.8% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Chocolate qualifies for all text sizes including small body copy (AAA).
- Color blindness consideration: protanopia and deuteranopia (red-green color blindness, ~8% of males) may affect how brown-family colors are distinguished from greens and browns. For critical UI states, supplement color alone with shape, label, or pattern cues.
Chocolate's WCAG profile makes it a compliant choice for most text applications.
Chocolate in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Chocolate (#7B3F00) is most at home in industries where earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity are key brand values. Its dark quality makes it particularly effective in Food & Beverage contexts, where the vivid saturation signals earthiness at exactly the right register.
- Food & Beverage: Brown's associations with coffee, chocolate, bread, and wood-fire cooking make it indispensable for food brands that want to project artisanal quality, warmth, and natural origin. The color does the work of suggesting handmade, slow-craft processes before a single word is read. (examples: Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Blue Bottle Coffee) Light browns work for dairy and bakery; dark browns for coffee, chocolate, and premium spirits.
- Outdoor & Lifestyle: Outdoor, hiking, and adventure brands use brown as an earth tone that grounds the product in natural environments. Combined with forest greens and slate grays, it creates a palette language of terrain, durability, and wilderness competence. (examples: REI, Patagonia, Arc'teryx) Brown leather and canvas associations make it particularly effective for gear, footwear, and heritage outdoor brands.
- Craft & Artisanal: The craft movement across food, beer, candles, and home goods has made brown its unofficial color—it signals hand-made, small-batch, locally-sourced, and premium-for-a-reason. Any product that wants to claim artisanal credentials benefits from earthy, brown-anchored packaging. Kraft paper brown in particular has become synonymous with sustainable, artisanal packaging.
- Brand positioning: Chocolate is best suited for brands projecting authenticity, craftsmanship, reliability. Categories outside this positioning—technology products—tend to see weaker results.
- Adjacent applications: Beyond primary industries, Chocolate works effectively in coffee and chocolate brands, craft beer packaging, outdoor gear—contexts where earthiness serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Chocolate performs best are those where the audience expects earthiness. Build brand strategy around this alignment, not against it.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Chocolate? ▾
- The hex code for Chocolate is #7B3F00. Its RGB values are rgb(123, 63, 0) and its HSL values are hsl(31, 100%, 24%).
- What does Chocolate mean in design? ▾
- Chocolate brown is the color that most immediately triggers appetite for sweetness — used by Cadbury, Hershey, and every artisanal chocolatier. Its warmth and richness signal indulgence and quality without the cold exclusivity of black.
- Is Chocolate WCAG accessible? ▾
- Chocolate (#7B3F00) passes WCAG AAA on white with a 8.22:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 96/100.
- What colors go well with Chocolate? ▾
- Chocolate pairs well with its complementary color Viridian Blue (#0F56A0). Analogous colors like Garnet and Coral also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Chocolate used for? ▾
- Chocolate is commonly used for: Coffee shops and specialty beverage brands; Chocolate and premium confectionery; Outdoor gear and hiking equipment; Furniture and home furnishing brands; Craft beer and artisanal food products.
- What are the CSS and Tailwind values for Chocolate? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #7B3F00` or `background-color: #7B3F00`. The CSS custom property is `--color-chocolate: #7B3F00`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#7B3F00]` for backgrounds or `text-[#7B3F00]` for text.