Buffered Snapdragon
Buffered Snapdragon (#635F48) is a deep amber with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (51°, 16%, 34%) places it in the muted band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary blue. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old French buffer, to soften the impact — past-participle of buffer. As a color modifier, buffered implies a hushed-and-cushioned-and-impact-reduced quality where the hue carries the visual register of edge-eased-and-impact-softened design-element. Sits at the hushed-and-soft end of the grid, parallel to cushioned and softened in usage.
The genus Antirrhinum — particularly A. majus, the cottage-garden biennial whose tall flower spikes feature snapping dragon-mouth blooms in pinks, oranges, and yellows. The color refers to a yellow snapdragon bloom: a saturated, slightly red-shifted bright yellow with the matte finish of bee-pollinated flower stack.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.