Quiet Lemon
Quiet Lemon (#8D7B18) 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 (51°, 71%, 32%) places it in the balanced 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
Latin quietus, at rest — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as restrained. Quiet pink, quiet blue: low saturation combined with optical calmness. Sits across the crisp and hushed buckets where the color is present but doesn't ask for attention.
Citrus limon, the cultivated yellow citrus of southern Italian and North African groves. Originally a hybrid of citron and bitter orange, the lemon spread through the Mediterranean during the medieval Arab agricultural revolution. The color refers to the skin of a ripe Eureka lemon: a clean, slightly green-shifted yellow with the matte finish of citrus rind. The fruit's acidity gave English the figurative lemon — something that disappoints — separately from the color.
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.