Crimson (#DC143C) is a medium, highly saturated red hue. Crimson leans slightly toward blue, which makes it feel richer and more formal than pure red; it is a favourite for university and sports branding.
In RGB it is made of 220 red, 20 green and 60 blue. Its HSL hue angle is 348° with 83% saturation and 47% lightness, while its perceptual OKLCH lightness is 57% with a chroma of 0.222. For print, a starting CMYK mix is 0% cyan, 91% magenta, 73% yellow and 14% black.
As a text color on white, Crimson has a contrast ratio of 4.99:1, which passes WCAG AA for normal text. On black it reaches 4.21:1 and passes AA only for large text. If you use Crimson as a background, put white text on it. The APCA lightness contrast is Lc 32 for black text and Lc -78 for white text.
Its perceptual complement is #00888E, close to teal. Colors that look most similar are cherry red, raspberry, ruby. People with red-green color blindness see crimson quite differently (ΔE 22), so do not rely on it alone to signal meaning.