Tints & Shades
50
100
200
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400
500
600
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800
900
Scale from white (50) through Dark Brown (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #5C4033
- RGB
- rgb(92, 64, 51)
- HSL
- hsl(19, 29%, 28%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.399 0.045 46)
- CMYK
- cmyk(0%, 30%, 45%, 64%)
--color-dark-brownbg-[#5C4033]Accessibility
Score: 96/100On White (#FFF)
9.39:1
On Black (#000)
2.24:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
8.61:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #5C4033
color: #5C4033
bg-[#5C4033] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #5C4033
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Baby Blue
#89CFF0
Split-Complementary
Color Meaning & Psychology
Brown is the color of earth, wood, and food — the most organic color in the spectrum. It conveys honesty, dependability, and unpretentiousness. Unlike the engineered precision of black, brown's warmth feels handmade and authentic. Coffee culture has made brown aspirational in ways it never was in the 20th century; the smell and warmth of a coffee shop is inseparable from its brown palette. Darker, richer browns signal luxury craft — leather, walnut, dark chocolate. Lighter sandy browns feel outdoor, regional, and approachable. Brown's weakness is its association with dirt and decay in medical contexts, where it is largely avoided. Its deeper, richer tone gives it gravitas and sophistication, making it well-suited for primary brand colors, typography, and contexts where authority matters.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Dark Brown 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
Dark Brown is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (9.39:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #5C4033;Text
color: #5C4033;Border
border: 2px solid #5C4033;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #5C403340;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #5C4033, #8a6b5d);Tailwind-style
--color-dark-brown: #5C4033;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Dark Brown without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#5C4033]Text
text-[#5C4033]Border
border-[#5C4033]Ring
ring-[#5C4033]Fill
fill-[#5C4033]From (gradient)
from-[#5C4033]Via (gradient)
via-[#5C4033]To (gradient)
to-[#5C4033]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Dark Brown design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-dark-brown: #5C4033;
--color-dark-brown-rgb: 92, 64, 51;
--color-dark-brown-hsl: 19, 29%, 28%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-dark-brown: #5C4033; $color-dark-brown-rgb: 92, 64, 51; $color-dark-brown-hsl: 19, 29%, 28%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'dark-brown': '#5C4033',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-dark-brown: #5C4033;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"dark-brown": {
"value": "#5C4033",
"type": "color",
"description": "Dark Brown — #5C4033"
}
}More brown colors
View all →What Does Dark Brown Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
In an era of digital abstraction, Dark Brown operates as a powerful anchor to the material world. Its deep character at 28% lightness registers as reliability—a response built from millennia of associating earth-toned environments with stability, shelter, and natural abundance.
- Across color psychology research, brown consistently tests high for "authenticity" associations, making Dark Brown a reliable vehicle for reliability in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on brown-family tones to project naturalness and warmth—values that Dark Brown communicates in a deep key.
- At 29% saturation, Dark Brown reads as muted—Muted taupes and pale warms are some of design's most universally usable neutrals—background-perfect, unthreatening, and inherently warm without competing with other palette elements.
- Dark Brown's deep lightness (28%) shifts its psychological register: Deep chocolate, espresso, and mahogany tones carry luxurious weight—rich, sophisticated, and associated with premium craft materials and indulgent flavors.
The brands that use Dark Brown well are the ones that understand that authenticity can't be faked—it can only be matched by colors that embody it.
How to Use Dark Brown in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Brands reaching for authenticity and craft frequently choose Dark Brown over other options precisely because it doesn't try to be clever. It simply is what it is—warm, honest, and materially grounded.
- Avoid: technology products, clinical healthcare, and anything that needs to project cleanliness or digital precision.
- Color harmonies: Dark Brown's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Dark Brown's muted quality means it scales well across proportions—from full-bleed backgrounds to single-pixel borders—making it an unusually versatile palette component.
- As a dark tone, Dark Brown creates maximum contrast with white and light neutrals—excellent for creating premium dark-mode sections, bold headers, and high-drama brand moments
- Typography: Dark Brown works as a background behind white text but requires careful sizing—test at intended heading and body sizes before finalizing.
The brands that use Dark Brown well are the ones that understand that authenticity can't be faked—it can only be matched by colors that embody it.
Dark Brown Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Dark Brown (#5C4033) achieves a 9.39:1 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: 6.2%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 9.39:1 — AAA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 2.24:1 — Fail
- Best text color on Dark Brown background: White (#FFFFFF) at 9.39:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 6.2% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Dark Brown 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.
For production use, test Dark Brown against your specific background colors rather than assuming #FFFFFF or #000000 performance translates. Surrounding colors alter perceived contrast.
Dark Brown in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Dark Brown (#5C4033) is most at home in industries where earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity are key brand values. Its deep quality makes it particularly effective in Food & Beverage contexts, where the muted saturation signals authenticity 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: Chipotle, Sweetgreen, 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: Yeti, Arc'teryx, Patagonia) 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: Dark Brown is best suited for brands projecting naturalness, warmth, reliability. Categories outside this positioning—technology products—tend to see weaker results.
- Adjacent applications: Beyond primary industries, Dark Brown works effectively in artisanal food, furniture and home goods, natural product labels—contexts where authenticity serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Dark Brown performs best are those where the audience expects authenticity. Build brand strategy around this alignment, not against it.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Dark Brown? ▾
- The hex code for Dark Brown is #5C4033. Its RGB values are rgb(92, 64, 51) and its HSL values are hsl(19, 29%, 28%).
- What does Dark Brown mean in design? ▾
- Brown is the color of earth, wood, and food — the most organic color in the spectrum. It conveys honesty, dependability, and unpretentiousness. Unlike the engineered precision of black, brown's warmth feels handmade and authentic. Coffee culture has made brown aspirational in ways it never was in the 20th century; the smell and warmth of a coffee shop is inseparable from its brown palette. Darker, richer browns signal luxury craft — leather, walnut, dark chocolate. Lighter sandy browns feel outdoor, regional, and approachable. Brown's weakness is its association with dirt and decay in medical contexts, where it is largely avoided. Its deeper, richer tone gives it gravitas and sophistication, making it well-suited for primary brand colors, typography, and contexts where authority matters.
- Is Dark Brown WCAG accessible? ▾
- Dark Brown (#5C4033) passes WCAG AAA on white with a 9.39:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 96/100.
- What colors go well with Dark Brown? ▾
- Dark Brown pairs well with its complementary color Baby Blue (#89CFF0). Analogous colors like Pink and Barn Red also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Dark Brown used for? ▾
- Dark Brown 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 Dark Brown? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #5C4033` or `background-color: #5C4033`. The CSS custom property is `--color-dark-brown: #5C4033`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#5C4033]` for backgrounds or `text-[#5C4033]` for text.