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Surveyed Spelt

#6a4302
Notes

Surveyed Spelt (#6A4302) is a deep amber with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (38°, 96%, 21%) places it in the highly saturated band at a dark lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#6a4302
RGB
rgb(106, 67, 2)
HSL
hsl(38, 96%, 21%)
HWB
hwb(38 1% 58%)
OKLCH
oklch(41.8% 0.089 71.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3937 0.2695 0.0791)
HSV
hsv(38, 98%, 42%)
LAB
lab(32.00% 11.90 40.79)
LCH
lch(32.00% 42.49 73.74)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 37%, 98%, 58%)

Etymology

Surveyed
adjective

Old French surveer, to look upon — past-participle of survey. As a color modifier, surveyed implies a clear-and-measured-and-coordinated quality, the crisp color of Mason-Dixon-Line-and-Royal-Navy-Hydrographic scientific-and-cadastral land-and-sea surveying tradition. Sits at the crisp-and-mapped end of the grid, parallel to mapped and plotted in usage.

Spelt
noun

Triticum spelta, the ancient wheat species cultivated in Europe since the Bronze Age — slowly returning to artisan baking after a century of displacement by modern wheat. The color refers to a fresh-baked spelt loaf: a soft, slightly muted warm tan with the slightly nuttier finish of ancient-grain flour.

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 explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

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.

#6a4302
Original
#504600
Protanopia
#5a4f04
Deuteranopia
#753938
Tritanopia
#474747
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

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.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon White
8.69:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon Black
2.42:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##6A4302
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3937 0.2695 0.0791)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.089

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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