Tangerine#FF8400, a warm vivid orange
Tangerine in RGB, HSL, OKLCH & more
Ready to ship: every line pastes straight into your codebase, and the whole file copies at once.
ART is Rhapsody's perceptual model. How ART works
Why is it called Tangerine?
Tangerine's meaning, origin, and pronunciation, with sources.
Anchor: A10 · one of the 72 anchor hues of ART
Origin: Tangier, Morocco. The word just means "of Tangier"
Meaning: A thing from Tangier: first people, then oranges, then the color
TAN-juh-reen · /ˌtændʒəˈriːn/
Tangier, Morocco + the ending -ine → tangerine, "of Tangier," by 1710 (Addison used it in The Tatler) → "tangerine orange," an orange shipped through that port, by the 1840s → the color, in 1899.
Here is the joke geography plays on word history. The fruit isn't Moroccan. Mandarins are native to Southeast Asia. Tangier was only the port they sailed from on the last leg to Europe, so the tangerine is named after its layover.
Turquoise pulls the same trick. The "Turkish" stone is actually Persian. A great many color words credit the middleman rather than the maker. Tangier's own name goes back to Latin Tingis, and Morocco holds a second anchor on this wheel: Zreq, the Moroccan Arabic word for blue.
etymonline s.v. tangerine, Tangier; Wikipedia s.v. Tangerine (OED/Addison); Merriam-Webster. Etymological dictionaries + scholarly sources. Audio: Speaker: Vealhurl Recorder: Vealhurl, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Shades of Tangerine, lighter and darker
For hover states, washed backgrounds, and dark surfaces that still read as #FF8400. 13 steps, spaced evenly by eye, with the color itself sitting at its natural depth, tangerine-400.
Tints (light surfaces; dark text passes on every one)
Midtones (the color at full strength, for brand & accent work)
Shades (dark surfaces; light text passes on every one)
Most tools mix. Rhapsody measures.
Paste any color. The whole system comes back, contrast-checked before you see it.
The window on the right was generated from #FF8400, like this whole page.
Is Tangerine accessible? Contrast with white & black
Strong contrast makes your work readable by everyone, and meets the WCAG standard accessibility law points at. AA is the floor; AAA is the tier worth aiming for in body text. Black text on #FF8400 clears WCAG AAA. Every strip below is one surface, and the marks are the steps that reach AAA on it.
Rows are text, columns are background · 60 of 210 pairings reach WCAG 2.2 AAA, shown here.
Ship the audit, not screenshots.
Run #FF8400 against the colors you actually ship, every pairing and any target, and export it: exact ratios, the AA tier, APCA, in one file.
The audit on the right was calibrated from #FF8400, like this whole page.
Tangerine in CMYK: one value for files, one per press
This color shifts further than a press run can hold, so expect a visible difference. The pairs below show where each standard lands.
In CMYK, #FF8400 is . That is the value design tools and file formats use when no press is involved.
On press (what each standard prints)
shifts ΔE00 12.7, 5.1× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 7.9, 3.2× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 2.4, under the 2.5 a press run varies by
shifts ΔE00 2.4, under the 2.5 a press run varies by
shifts ΔE00 1.8, under the 2.5 a press run varies by
Press values computed through the ICC characterization data each standard proofs against. Each CMYK above is the closest that standard can get.
No surprises at the printer.
Run any color through the major press standards: FOGRA51, GRACoL, Japan Color, FOGRA39. It's coming soon. Create a free account and you'll get a note the moment it's live.
The strip shows this page's tints and shades on screen, then through a standard GRACoL 2013 conversion.
Colors similar to Tangerine
A thing from Tangier: first people, then oranges, then the color
Here are other colors similar to Tangerine along with accessible text pairings and whether or not they're print-safe. Explore The Oranges
| Flush Orange | Flush Orange | #FF7F00 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Flamenco | Flamenco | #FF7D07 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Dark Orange | Dark Orange | #FF8C00 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Pumpkin Orange | Pumpkin Orange | #FB7D07 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Sorbus | Sorbus | #FD7C07 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Pizazz | Pizazz | #FF9000 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Papaya | Papaya | #FF9100 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Carrot | Carrot | #FF7600 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Ecstasy | Ecstasy | #FA7814 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Chilean Fire | Chilean Fire | #F77703 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Clementine | Clementine | #E96E00 | black text · AA | ✕ shifts on press |
Colors that go with Tangerine
The complementary color, straight across the wheel, is a cool bold blue #3D7ACC. Rhapsody's pick is the split complement, just to one side of it, a livelier pair.
The accent is for the moments that need attention, the harmony for the ones that need calm; the neutral carries the text and surfaces in between.
Take Tangerine with you
The work on this page doesn't stay here. Save a card and the color arrives in your file, your deck or your board already decided.
Your system is already built.
Rhapsody built it before you even asked: the scale, the neutrals, the utilities, every pairing calibrated.
This page's whole theme is built from one color. Palette does the same for yours: every step calibrated, every pairing checked, press included.
Every color on this page was calibrated, not mixed.
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