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Brick #cb4154

Architecture’s default red.

RGB
203, 65, 84
HSL
352°, 57%, 53%
CMYK
0, 68, 59, 20
Luminance
0.1712

About Brick

Brick, #cb4154, is red fired with clay’s honesty — the color of the most-built material in human history. Between rust’s orange and wine’s depth, brick is warmth you can lean on.

History

Fired brick built Babylon, Rome’s aqueducts and every Victorian street; London stock and Boston red gave cities their palettes. “Brick red” entered color lists in the 1800s as industry standardized what kilns had freelanced for millennia.

Psychology

Brick reads solid, urban and trustworthy — red with a mortgage. It is heritage without pretension: lofts, campuses and coffee roasters all trade on it.

In design

Brick is a dependable warm anchor: passes large text on white (~4.9:1), superb as exposed-texture backdrops and accent walls in UI metaphor. Pair with cream mortar tones, charcoal ironwork, sage and denim.

In culture

Hitting the bricks, brick-and-mortar, like a ton of bricks: solidity’s idiom set. Exposed brick remains the universal signal of “authentic space.”

Brands that own brick

Shades of brick

Every format

HEX#cb4154
RGBrgb(203, 65, 84)
HSLhsl(352, 57%, 53%)
CMYKcmyk(0%, 68%, 59%, 20%)
LABlab(48.4 55.5 20.2)
LCHlch(48.4 59.1 20.0)
OKLCHoklch(0.577 0.173 16.6)

Copy-ready code

/* CSS */
color: #cb4154;
background-color: #cb4154;
/* Tailwind (arbitrary) */
class="text-[#cb4154] bg-[#cb4154]"
/* SCSS */
$brand: #cb4154;
/* SwiftUI */
Color(red: 0.796, green: 0.255, blue: 0.329)
/* Android */
Color.parseColor("#cb4154")

Accessibility — WCAG contrast

Aa
#cb4154 on white: 4.75:1
AA ✓ pass · AA-large · AAA
Aa
#cb4154 on black: 4.42:1
AA ✗ fail · AA-large · AAA
true color
protanopia
deuteranopia
tritanopia

RGB percentages

Red79.6%
Green25.5%
Blue32.9%

CMYK percentages

Cyan0.0%
Magenta68.0%
Yellow58.6%
Key (black)20.4%

Color previews

#cb4154 text on a black background

contrast 4.42:1

Card sample

#cb4154 text on a white background

contrast 4.75:1

Card sample

CSS3 live lab

Text font color

The quick brown fox

color: #cb4154;
Background color
Panel with #cb4154 background
background-color: #cb4154;
Text shadow — hex

Glowing headline

text-shadow: 2px 2px 8px #cb4154;
Text shadow — RGB

Soft neon halo

text-shadow: 0 0 14px rgba(203, 65, 84, 0.45);
Div box shadow
Elevated card
box-shadow: 0 12px 32px -8px rgba(203, 65, 84, 0.45);
Border & gradient
Gradient panel
border: 3px solid #cb4154;
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #cb4154, #CB8A41);

Monochromatic scale

Palettes built from #cb4154

Shades — darker

Tints — lighter

Hue & tone neighbors

Color harmonies

Nearest named colors

Brick, answered

What is the hex code for brick red?

Brick is #cb4154; CSS firebrick is #b22222; aged London stock bricks photograph toward #a45a52.

Brick vs rust vs terracotta?

Terracotta is the raw clay (orange-pink), rust is oxidized iron (orange-brown), brick is fired clay — redder and more architectural than both.

What pairs with brick red?

Cream and off-white (mortar logic), charcoal (ironwork), sage and olive (planters), denim for campus casual.

Work with #cb4154 in the Color Lab