ColorXprez

#2B271C

Espresso · very dark neutral

About #2B271C

#2B271C is a near-neutral, very dark shade in the brown family. On screen it is built from 17% red, 15% green and 11% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 0% cyan, 9% magenta, 35% yellow and 83% black. Being nearly neutral, it pairs easily with warm and cool tones alike.

Of the common colour names it is very close to Espresso (ΔE 7.5); Jet comes next. Its complementary colour, directly opposite on the colour wheel, is #1C202B — a jet tone that gives the strongest contrast in hue.

Designers tend to use very dark tones like #2B271C for headings, body text, footers and dark-mode backgrounds. White text reads best on it at 14.90:1 (a WCAG AAA pass). Used as a text colour on white, it is readable too (14.90:1).

Colour codes

HEX
RGB
HSL
HSV / HSB
CMYK
CIELAB
Decimal
CSS
Red43
Green39
Blue28

Closest named colours

Espresso
#3B2A20 · ΔE 7.5
Jet
#2B2B2B · ΔE 8.2
Graphite
#383838 · ΔE 11.1

ΔE measures visible difference: under 2 is barely noticeable, over 10 is clearly different.

Text on #2B271C

WCAG contrast for white and black text on this colour.

White heading text
Body copy set on espresso #2B271C.
14.90:1AAA
Black heading text
Body copy set on espresso #2B271C.
1.41:1Fail

Colour-blindness preview

How #2B271C appears to people with the three most common types of colour-vision deficiency.

Normal vision
#2B271C
Protanopia (no red cones)
#29271B
Deuteranopia (no green cones)
#2B281C
Tritanopia (no blue cones)
#2D2524

Shades, tints & matching colours

Tints and shades

Complementary

Analogous

Triadic

Split complementary

Tetradic

Similar colours

Frequently asked questions

›What colour is #2B271C?

#2B271C is a near-neutral, very dark shade in the brown family. On screen it is built from 17% red, 15% green and 11% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 0% cyan, 9% magenta, 35% yellow and 83% black. Being nearly neutral, it pairs easily with warm and cool tones alike.

›What text colour should I use on #2B271C?

Use white text. White on #2B271C has a contrast ratio of 14.90:1 (AAA).

›What colours go with #2B271C?

Its complementary colour is #1C202B, and analogous partners are #2B201C and #282B1C.