colors
Back to gallery

Bright Curry

#969c16
Notes

Bright Curry (#969C16) is a true yellow 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 (63°, 75%, 35%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. 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.

HEX
#969c16
RGB
rgb(150, 156, 22)
HSL
hsl(63, 75%, 35%)
HWB
hwb(63 9% 39%)
OKLCH
oklch(66.6% 0.142 112.5)
HSV
hsv(63, 86%, 61%)
LAB
lab(61.93% -17.21 61.27)
LCH
lch(61.93% 63.64 105.69)
CMYK
cmyk(4%, 0%, 86%, 39%)

Etymology

Bright
adjective

Old English beorht, shining, luminous — cognate with the German Bracht, splendor. Applied to color since at least the medieval period for hues that read as luminous: not just light in value but optically active, as if scattering more light back than a dimmer color of the same lightness would. Sits at the bright-bucket center alongside vivid and brilliant.

Curry
noun

Anglicized from the Tamil karisauce — and applied to a vast family of South and Southeast Asian dishes whose color comes principally from turmeric, the rhizome of Curcuma longa. The color refers to a yellow Madras-style curry sauce: a saturated, slightly red-shifted yellow with the dusty surface of spice powder suspended in liquid. Warmer than mustard, deeper than goldenrod, with the kitchen warmth of curcumin pigment.

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.

#969c16
Original
#a99400
Protanopia
#a99725
Deuteranopia
#a19285
Tritanopia
#919191
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).
Failon White
2.97:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
7.06:1

Related Colors

Canvas