Tints & Shades
50
100
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Scale from white (50) through Sepia (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #704214
- RGB
- rgb(112, 66, 20)
- HSL
- hsl(30, 70%, 26%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.426 0.086 61)
- CMYK
- cmyk(0%, 41%, 82%, 56%)
--color-sepiabg-[#704214]Accessibility
Score: 96/100On White (#FFF)
8.47:1
On Black (#000)
2.48:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
7.77:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #704214
color: #704214
bg-[#704214] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #704214
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Bleu de France
#318CE7
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. 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 Sepia 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
Sepia is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (8.47:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #704214;Text
color: #704214;Border
border: 2px solid #704214;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #70421440;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #704214, #a26d3e);Tailwind-style
--color-sepia: #704214;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Sepia without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#704214]Text
text-[#704214]Border
border-[#704214]Ring
ring-[#704214]Fill
fill-[#704214]From (gradient)
from-[#704214]Via (gradient)
via-[#704214]To (gradient)
to-[#704214]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Sepia design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-sepia: #704214;
--color-sepia-rgb: 112, 66, 20;
--color-sepia-hsl: 30, 70%, 26%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-sepia: #704214; $color-sepia-rgb: 112, 66, 20; $color-sepia-hsl: 30, 70%, 26%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'sepia': '#704214',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-sepia: #704214;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"sepia": {
"value": "#704214",
"type": "color",
"description": "Sepia — #704214"
}
}More brown colors
View all →What Does Sepia Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Sepia (#704214) speaks the visual language of earth—the color of soil, wood, leather, and the raw materials of making. Brown-family tones project warmth through an ancient, universal association with the physical world: solid, reliable, and honestly crafted.
- 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.
- Sepia's deep lightness (26%) shifts its psychological register: Deep chocolate, espresso, and mahogany tones carry luxurious weight—rich, sophisticated, and associated with premium craft materials and indulgent flavors.
- At 70% saturation, Sepia reads as moderately saturated—neither overwhelming nor passive, landing in the earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity zone with measured confidence.
Sepia asks for trust without performance—and that quiet confidence is its greatest design asset.
How to Use Sepia in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Sepia 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—Sepia performs reliably in all these roles with its deep tonal character.
- Brand & identity: coffee and chocolate brands, craft beer packaging, outdoor gear—contexts where Sepia's moderately saturated quality creates the right register.
- Typography: Sepia works as a background behind white text but requires careful sizing—test at intended heading and body sizes before finalizing.
- As a dark tone, Sepia creates maximum contrast with white and light neutrals—excellent for creating premium dark-mode sections, bold headers, and high-drama brand moments
- Proportional use: Sepia's moderately saturated saturation (70%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.
Sepia asks for trust without performance—and that quiet confidence is its greatest design asset.
Sepia Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Sepia (#704214) achieves a 8.47:1 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: 7.4%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 8.47:1 — AAA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 2.48:1 — Fail
- Best text color on Sepia background: White (#FFFFFF) at 8.47:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 7.4% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Sepia 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.
Always verify Sepia 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.
Sepia in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Sepia's brand positioning falls squarely in the territory of earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity. Industry data supports its strongest performance in food & beverage, outdoor & lifestyle, coffee categories, where the moderately saturated saturation calibrates the message at a deep, considered level.
- 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: Sepia 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, Sepia works effectively in coffee and chocolate brands, craft beer packaging, outdoor gear—contexts where reliability serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
For marketers and brand strategists, Sepia is a commitment to earthiness, stability, warmth, and authenticity. Match it with industries that make that promise and it will pay dividends consistently.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Sepia? ▾
- The hex code for Sepia is #704214. Its RGB values are rgb(112, 66, 20) and its HSL values are hsl(30, 70%, 26%).
- What does Sepia 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 Sepia WCAG accessible? ▾
- Sepia (#704214) passes WCAG AAA on white with a 8.47:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 96/100.
- What colors go well with Sepia? ▾
- Sepia pairs well with its complementary color Bleu de France (#318CE7). Analogous colors like Red and Papaya also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Sepia used for? ▾
- Sepia 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 Sepia? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #704214` or `background-color: #704214`. The CSS custom property is `--color-sepia: #704214`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#704214]` for backgrounds or `text-[#704214]` for text.