Tints & Shades
50
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
Scale from white (50) through Raw Umber (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #826644
- RGB
- rgb(130, 102, 68)
- HSL
- hsl(33, 31%, 39%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.53 0.061 71)
- CMYK
- cmyk(0%, 22%, 48%, 49%)
--color-raw-umberbg-[#826644]Accessibility
Score: 54/100On White (#FFF)
5.34:1
On Black (#000)
3.93:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
4.9:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #826644
color: #826644
bg-[#826644] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #826644
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Cool Blue
#4F84C4
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 Raw Umber 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
Raw Umber is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (5.34:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #826644;Text
color: #826644;Border
border: 2px solid #826644;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #82664440;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #826644, #b39470);Tailwind-style
--color-raw-umber: #826644;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Raw Umber without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#826644]Text
text-[#826644]Border
border-[#826644]Ring
ring-[#826644]Fill
fill-[#826644]From (gradient)
from-[#826644]Via (gradient)
via-[#826644]To (gradient)
to-[#826644]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Raw Umber design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-raw-umber: #826644;
--color-raw-umber-rgb: 130, 102, 68;
--color-raw-umber-hsl: 33, 31%, 39%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-raw-umber: #826644; $color-raw-umber-rgb: 130, 102, 68; $color-raw-umber-hsl: 33, 31%, 39%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'raw-umber': '#826644',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-raw-umber: #826644;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"raw-umber": {
"value": "#826644",
"type": "color",
"description": "Raw Umber — #826644"
}
}More brown colors
View all →What Does Raw Umber Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
In an era of digital abstraction, Raw Umber operates as a powerful anchor to the material world. Its deep character at 39% 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.
- Raw Umber's deep lightness (39%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity at its most direct.
- At 31% saturation, Raw Umber reads as subdued—neither overwhelming nor passive, landing in the earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity zone with measured confidence.
Raw Umber asks for trust without performance—and that quiet confidence is its greatest design asset.
How to Use Raw Umber in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Raw Umber 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—Raw Umber performs reliably in all these roles with its deep tonal character.
- Brand & identity: coffee and chocolate brands, craft beer packaging, outdoor gear—contexts where Raw Umber's subdued quality creates the right register.
- Typography: Raw Umber works as a background behind white text but requires careful sizing—test at intended heading and body sizes before finalizing.
- As a dark tone, Raw Umber creates maximum contrast with white and light neutrals—excellent for creating premium dark-mode sections, bold headers, and high-drama brand moments
- Proportional use: Raw Umber's subdued quality means it scales well across proportions—from full-bleed backgrounds to single-pixel borders—making it an unusually versatile palette component.
Raw Umber asks for trust without performance—and that quiet confidence is its greatest design asset.
Raw Umber Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Raw Umber (#826644) reaches 5.34:1 contrast with white 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: 14.7%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 5.34:1 — AA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 3.93:1 — AA (large text only)
- Best text color on Raw Umber background: White (#FFFFFF) at 5.34:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 14.7% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Raw Umber 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 Raw Umber 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.
Raw Umber in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Across industry research, brown-family tones consistently outperform competitors in categories built on earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity. Raw Umber is a deep 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: Raw Umber 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, Raw Umber works effectively in coffee and chocolate brands, craft beer packaging, outdoor gear—contexts where reliability serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
Raw Umber 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.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Raw Umber? ▾
- The hex code for Raw Umber is #826644. Its RGB values are rgb(130, 102, 68) and its HSL values are hsl(33, 31%, 39%).
- What does Raw Umber 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 Raw Umber WCAG accessible? ▾
- Raw Umber (#826644) passes WCAG AA on white with a 5.34:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 54/100.
- What colors go well with Raw Umber? ▾
- Raw Umber pairs well with its complementary color Cool Blue (#4F84C4). Analogous colors like New York Pink and Rust also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Raw Umber used for? ▾
- Raw Umber 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 Raw Umber? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #826644` or `background-color: #826644`. The CSS custom property is `--color-raw-umber: #826644`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#826644]` for backgrounds or `text-[#826644]` for text.