Color profile · Earth family
Terracotta.
The clay-red of unglazed pottery — named for the field, not the wheel.
#C36F4D
Terracotta
Technical specs.
Same colour, four notations — copy the one your tool needs.
- Hex
- #C36F4D
- RGB
- rgb(195, 111, 77)
- CMYK
- 0 · 43 · 61 · 24
- HSL
- 17° · 51% · 53%
Origin.
Terracotta — Italian for 'baked earth' — names the unglazed orange-red clay used in Mediterranean pottery, roof tiles, and figurines from antiquity onward. The colour name became standard in English design vocabulary in the 19th century, attached to a specific pigment registered with the Royal Horticultural Society in 1938.
What Terracotta means.
Three readings the colour carries before any product or page is built around it.
01
Warmth, soil, sunlight on stone. Terracotta is read by the eye as material before it is read as colour.
02
Mediterranean register: hospitality, food, garden. The colour appears in nearly every culture between the 40th parallels, so it reads as familiar without reading as specific.
03
Slow craft and patience. Terracotta is not a digital colour — it never reads as new, which is why it has been a designer's tool for two thousand years.
Pairs with.
Four colours that earn their place next to Terracotta.
Linen Cream
#F4EAD8
The natural light pair — terracotta sitting on cream is the default of Italian print design.
Olive Field
#6B7438
Mediterranean complementary. Olive holds terracotta down without dampening it.
Walnut Shadow
#2E2A24
The dense neutral that lets terracotta become the loudest tone in the system.
Sage Field
#7BA174
Cooler-leaning green — terracotta with sage reads as Tuscany, not Greece.
Used in these palettes.
Terracotta is an anchor or near-anchor of the following systems.
When to use Terracotta — when to avoid.
A colour is only correct in the right context. Terracotta earns its place in some categories and reads as foreign in others.
Best used for
- Hospitality identity — restaurants, wine, bakeries, boutique hotels.
- Editorial design that wants to read as historic without quoting a specific era.
- Lifestyle packaging where the offer is material — ceramics, linen, candles.
Avoid using for
- Tech and SaaS — terracotta reads as low-resolution there.
- High-saturation campaign work — terracotta loses to brighter neighbours at thumbnail scale.
- Healthcare and clinical — too warm to read as clean.
Terracotta — frequently asked.
- What is the hex code for Terracotta?
- Terracotta's standard hex code is #C36F4D. The exact pigment varies — Italian ceramic terracotta runs slightly darker (#B45A3C), while Spanish roof-tile terracotta is brighter (#D5763A).
- Where does the name Terracotta come from?
- Terracotta is Italian for 'baked earth' (terra + cotta). It originally named the unglazed clay material itself, and the colour name followed by association — first in design vocabulary, then in standard colour catalogues.
- What palettes is Terracotta the anchor of?
- Garden Clay is the most direct — terracotta as the mid-tone anchor in a five-stage warm-earth ladder. Soft Autumn and Warm Autumn both feature terracotta-adjacent tones as part of larger seasonal systems.
- What pairs well with Terracotta?
- Linen Cream for the natural light pair, Olive Field for Mediterranean complementary, Walnut Shadow for tonal depth, Sage Field for a cooler counterpoint.