Tints & Shades
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Scale from white (50) through Earth (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #A0785A
- RGB
- rgb(160, 120, 90)
- HSL
- hsl(26, 28%, 49%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.605 0.066 58)
- CMYK
- cmyk(0%, 25%, 44%, 37%)
--color-earthbg-[#A0785A]Accessibility
Score: 39/100On White (#FFF)
3.94:1
On Black (#000)
5.33:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
3.61:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #A0785A
color: #A0785A
bg-[#A0785A] text-[#000000]
border-left: 4px solid #A0785A
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Celestial Blue
#4997D0
Split-Complementary
Similar Colors
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. At medium lightness, it is the most versatile tone of this hue family — readable as text on light backgrounds, yet vibrant enough as a visual accent.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Earth 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
Fails 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
Earth is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (5.33:1). Avoid white text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #A0785A;Text
color: #A0785A;Border
border: 2px solid #A0785A;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #A0785A40;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #A0785A, #d2a787);Tailwind-style
--color-earth: #A0785A;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Earth without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#A0785A]Text
text-[#A0785A]Border
border-[#A0785A]Ring
ring-[#A0785A]Fill
fill-[#A0785A]From (gradient)
from-[#A0785A]Via (gradient)
via-[#A0785A]To (gradient)
to-[#A0785A]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Earth design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-earth: #A0785A;
--color-earth-rgb: 160, 120, 90;
--color-earth-hsl: 26, 28%, 49%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-earth: #A0785A; $color-earth-rgb: 160, 120, 90; $color-earth-hsl: 26, 28%, 49%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'earth': '#A0785A',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-earth: #A0785A;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"earth": {
"value": "#A0785A",
"type": "color",
"description": "Earth — #A0785A"
}
}More brown colors
View all →What Does Earth Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
In an era of digital abstraction, Earth operates as a powerful anchor to the material world. Its medium character at 49% lightness registers as authenticity—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 Earth a reliable vehicle for authenticity in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on brown-family tones to project naturalness and warmth—values that Earth communicates in a medium key.
- At 28% saturation, Earth 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.
- Earth's medium lightness (49%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity at its most direct.
In a world of loud design, Earth is a deliberate quietness. It says: this is real.
How to Use Earth in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
In digital design, Earth 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: Earth's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Earth's muted quality means it scales well across proportions—from full-bleed backgrounds to single-pixel borders—making it an unusually versatile palette component.
- Earth creates strong legibility with black text overlays (5.3:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
- Typography: Earth as text requires a dark background; its 49% lightness means it provides 3.9:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
In a world of loud design, Earth is a deliberate quietness. It says: this is real.
Earth Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Earth (#A0785A) reaches 5.33:1 contrast with black text—meeting WCAG 2.1 AA minimum of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. It clears standard production accessibility requirements. Relative luminance: 21.6%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 3.94:1 — AA (large text only)
- As text on black (#000000): 5.33:1 — AA ✓
- Best text color on Earth background: Black (#000000) at 5.33:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 21.6% — mid-range luminance—it sits in the transition zone where both dark and light text approaches require testing against the 4.5:1 WCAG threshold
- Earth qualifies for normal body text and all larger sizes (AA).
- 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.
Earth's WCAG profile makes it a compliant choice for most text applications.
Earth in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Earth (#A0785A) is most at home in industries where earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity are key brand values. Its medium quality makes it particularly effective in Food & Beverage contexts, where the muted saturation signals reliability 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: 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: Earth 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, Earth works effectively in coffee and chocolate brands, craft beer packaging, outdoor gear—contexts where reliability serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Earth performs best are those where the audience expects reliability. Build brand strategy around this alignment, not against it.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Earth? ▾
- The hex code for Earth is #A0785A. Its RGB values are rgb(160, 120, 90) and its HSL values are hsl(26, 28%, 49%).
- What does Earth 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. At medium lightness, it is the most versatile tone of this hue family — readable as text on light backgrounds, yet vibrant enough as a visual accent.
- Is Earth WCAG accessible? ▾
- Earth (#A0785A) passes WCAG AA-large on white with a 3.94:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 39/100.
- What colors go well with Earth? ▾
- Earth pairs well with its complementary color Celestial Blue (#4997D0). Analogous colors like Venetian Red and Poppy also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Earth used for? ▾
- Earth 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 Earth? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #A0785A` or `background-color: #A0785A`. The CSS custom property is `--color-earth: #A0785A`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#A0785A]` for backgrounds or `text-[#A0785A]` for text.