colors
Back to gallery

Easy Phosphor

#9c9651
Notes

Easy Phosphor (#9C9651) is a true yellow 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 (55°, 32%, 46%) 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
#9c9651
RGB
rgb(156, 150, 81)
HSL
hsl(55, 32%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(55 32% 39%)
OKLCH
oklch(66.3% 0.091 104.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6077 0.5890 0.3537)
HSV
hsv(55, 48%, 61%)
LAB
lab(61.20% -7.75 36.95)
LCH
lch(61.20% 37.76 101.85)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 4%, 48%, 39%)

Etymology

Easy
adjective

Old French aisié, comfortable, at rest — used as a color modifier since the eighteenth century for hues that read as visually undemanding. Easy beige, easy gray: moderate saturation combined with optical restfulness. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside calm and settled.

Phosphor
noun

A chemical that emits light when excited by an external energy source — the green-and-yellow phosphors of cathode-ray tubes, the yellow phosphor coatings of fluorescent tubes, and the white-LED yellow phosphor over a blue LED. The color refers to a yellow-phosphor-coated LED at full brightness: a saturated, slightly cool yellow with the optical brightness of electroluminescent emission.

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.

#9c9651
Original
#a1924b
Protanopia
#a39554
Deuteranopia
#a68e86
Tritanopia
#929292
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).
AA Largeon White
3.05:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
6.89:1

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
##9C9651
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6077 0.5890 0.3537)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.091

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.

Related Colors

Canvas