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Jasper

#D05340·brown family·WCAG AA

Tints & Shades

50

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

Scale from white (50) through Jasper (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.

Color Values

HEX
#D05340
RGB
rgb(208, 83, 64)
HSL
hsl(8, 61%, 53%)
OKLCH
oklch(0.603 0.162 31)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 60%, 69%, 18%)
Luminance:0.1997
CSS var:--color-jasper
Tailwind:bg-[#D05340]

Accessibility

Score: 39/100

On White (#FFF)

4.21:1

AA Large

On Black (#000)

4.99:1

AA

On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)

3.86:1

AA Large

Best text color on this background:

black4.99:1
Open in Contrast Checker →

Design Applications

Background

background-color: #D05340

Text Color

color: #D05340

bg-[#D05340] text-[#000000]

Accent border card component

border-left: 4px solid #D05340

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 Jasper 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

Jasper is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (4.99:1). Avoid white text on this background.

CSS & Code Examples

Background

background-color: #D05340;

Text

color: #D05340;

Border

border: 2px solid #D05340;

Box Shadow

box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #D0534040;

Gradient

background: linear-gradient(135deg, #D05340, #ff836b);

Tailwind-style

--color-jasper: #D05340;

Tailwind CSS Utilities

Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Jasper without a custom config.

Background

bg-[#D05340]

Text

text-[#D05340]

Border

border-[#D05340]

Ring

ring-[#D05340]

Fill

fill-[#D05340]

From (gradient)

from-[#D05340]

Via (gradient)

via-[#D05340]

To (gradient)

to-[#D05340]

Design Tokens

Ready-to-use Jasper design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.

CSS Custom Properties

:root {
  --color-jasper: #D05340;
  --color-jasper-rgb: 208, 83, 64;
  --color-jasper-hsl: 8, 61%, 53%;
}

SCSS Variables

$color-jasper: #D05340;
$color-jasper-rgb: 208, 83, 64;
$color-jasper-hsl: 8, 61%, 53%;

Tailwind v3 Config

// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      colors: {
        'jasper': '#D05340',
      },
    },
  },
};

Tailwind v4 (@theme)

/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
  --color-jasper: #D05340;
}

JSON Design Token (W3C format)

{
  "jasper": {
    "value": "#D05340",
    "type": "color",
    "description": "Jasper — #D05340"
  }
}

What Does Jasper Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism

In an era of digital abstraction, Jasper operates as a powerful anchor to the material world. Its medium character at 53% lightness registers as authenticity—a response built from millennia of associating earth-toned environments with stability, shelter, and natural abundance.

  • Brown carries the associations of the earth, wood, leather, and the materials of pre-industrial life—a grounding quality that contemporary branding leverages for authenticity, craft, and natural origin. Its associations with coffee, chocolate, and wood make it an instinctive choice for artisanal food and lifestyle brands.
  • Across Asian cultures, brown tones—particularly warm earthy reds and ochres—appear extensively in traditional architecture, ceramics, and clothing. Earth tones are universally associated with stability and natural order, and brown occupies this role across most of the world's cultural traditions.
  • Jasper's medium lightness (53%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity at its most direct.
  • At 61% saturation, Jasper reads as moderately saturated—neither overwhelming nor passive, landing in the earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity zone with measured confidence.

Jasper asks for trust without performance—and that quiet confidence is its greatest design asset.

How to Use Jasper in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices

Jasper is one of design's most underused versatile tones. It works as a neutral, an accent, a dominant brand color, and a sophisticated alternative to black—and it brings a warmth to palettes that no other color family delivers.

  • UI components: warm accent colors, earthy neutral backgrounds, natural brand accents—Jasper performs reliably in all these roles with its medium tonal character.
  • Brand & identity: coffee and chocolate brands, craft beer packaging, outdoor gear—contexts where Jasper's moderately saturated quality creates the right register.
  • Typography: Jasper as text requires a dark background; its 53% lightness means it provides 4.2:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
  • Jasper creates strong legibility with black text overlays (5.0:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
  • Proportional use: Jasper's moderately saturated saturation (61%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.

Jasper asks for trust without performance—and that quiet confidence is its greatest design asset.

Jasper Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design

Jasper (#D05340) reaches 4.99:1 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: 20.0%.

  • As text on white (#FFFFFF): 4.21:1 — AA (large text only)
  • As text on black (#000000): 4.99:1 — AA ✓
  • Best text color on Jasper background: Black (#000000) at 4.99:1
  • WCAG 2.1 luminance: 20.0% — 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
  • Jasper 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.

Always verify Jasper at its final intended size and weight using a real contrast checker—font weight and rendering environment affect perceived legibility beyond what raw ratios capture.

Jasper in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications

Across industry research, brown-family tones consistently outperform competitors in categories built on earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity. Jasper is a medium expression of this advantage—best positioned in Food & Beverage and adjacent markets.

  • 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: Jasper 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, Jasper works effectively in artisanal food, furniture and home goods, natural product labels—contexts where reliability serves a secondary but reinforcing role.

Jasper earns its strongest ROI in industries where trust and recognition compound over time: Food & Beverage, Outdoor & Lifestyle, Craft & Artisanal. Use it to build the kind of brand recognition that decades reinforce.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the hex code for Jasper?
The hex code for Jasper is #D05340. Its RGB values are rgb(208, 83, 64) and its HSL values are hsl(8, 61%, 53%).
What does Jasper 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 Jasper WCAG accessible?
Jasper (#D05340) passes WCAG AA-large on white with a 4.21:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 39/100.
What colors go well with Jasper?
Jasper pairs well with its complementary color Pool Blue (#00B5CC). Analogous colors like Amaranth Pink and Wine also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
What is Jasper used for?
Jasper 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 Jasper?
In CSS, use `color: #D05340` or `background-color: #D05340`. The CSS custom property is `--color-jasper: #D05340`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#D05340]` for backgrounds or `text-[#D05340]` for text.