What Accent Color Goes with Red and Black? How to Choose a Three-Color Palette for Web Design

Red and black can give a website or promotion a bold visual identity. But when both colors cover large areas, a page can feel heavy, and red lettering may get lost against a dark background. A third color can lighten the layout, highlight an action, or change its overall tone. Here are three options—ivory, golden yellow, and pale blue—with practical roles for backgrounds, text, and buttons.

Choose the third color by its role

Start by treating red as the brand or headline color and black as the foundation for text or large background areas. Then ask what the design still needs. Giving three strong colors equal space is rarely as useful as assigning each one a distinct job.

• Ivory ■#F7F2E8: Brightens large backgrounds while leaving room for black text and red highlights.
• Golden yellow ■#F0C65A: Highlights a purchase or registration button against a dark page.
• Pale blue ■#A9E2EC: Adds a cooler note and helps separate key actions from red brand elements.

These examples use HEX codes—a hexadecimal (base-16) way of specifying web colors. The three colors are not meant to fill equal thirds of the page. Use the main background broadly and reserve red and the third color for places that need attention.

Three red, black, and accent-color palettes for web design

1. Add ivory for an information-focused announcement page

Set the page background to ivory ■#F7F2E8, use near-black ■#171717 for body text and navigation labels, and apply deep red ■#B92432 to selected headings and the registration button. Use ivory ■#F7F2E8 for the button label as well, so the layout retains just three colors.

The contrast ratio—a measure of the difference in relative brightness between text and its background—is about 16.07:1 for near-black text on ivory and 5.60:1 for ivory text on the red button. This creates a bright reading area while keeping red as the focal color.

2. Add golden yellow for a sale or campaign

Use near-black ■#171717 for the main background, brighter red ■#E64C51 for a short headline, and golden yellow ■#F0C65A for a purchase button. Make the button label near-black ■#171717, and use golden yellow ■#F0C65A for short explanatory text against the dark background. The red headline against black has a contrast ratio of about 4.71:1; both black text on the yellow button and yellow text on black reach about 11.04:1.

Keep red focused on the headline and yellow on explanatory text and the purchase action instead of making both large competing panels. Red text placed directly on that yellow button would have a contrast ratio of only about 2.34:1, so use black text there instead.

3. Add pale blue for an event or digital-service page

Use near-black ■#171717 as the background, brighter red ■#E64C51 for the date and a brief headline, and pale blue ■#A9E2EC for the registration button and explanatory text. Whether the button label is near-black ■#171717 on pale blue or the explanatory text is pale blue on black, the contrast ratio is about 12.61:1.

Rather than setting red and blue in equally wide bands, use red to identify the announcement and blue for explanatory text and the main action. The distinction comes from placement and labels as well as color.

Check the shade of red and every text-background pair

The right shade of red depends on its background. Deep red ■#B92432 against near-black ■#171717 provides only about 2.87:1, which is not sufficient for ordinary-sized text. Brighter red ■#E64C51 against the same dark background reaches about 4.71:1. Yet that brighter red on ivory ■#F7F2E8 achieves only about 3.41:1, so a darker red is the better text choice on a light background.

At WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.2 Level AA, ordinary text generally needs at least 4.5:1 contrast and qualifying large text at least 3:1. Essential non-text indicators for controls and states need at least 3:1 against adjacent colors. Do not communicate registration options or selected states by color alone; use clear words, shapes, or other cues.

HueRoll lets you adjust a color using its HEX code and check its contrast against white or black. It does not directly compare two arbitrary colors, so verify the actual foreground and background combinations separately. After selecting the third color, review the size of each colored area and the appearance of text on the finished page.