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Tracer Margarita

#9fa506
Notes

Tracer Margarita (#9FA506) is a deep 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 (62°, 93%, 34%) 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 blue. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#9fa506
RGB
rgb(159, 165, 6)
HSL
hsl(62, 93%, 34%)
HWB
hwb(62 2% 35%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.4% 0.153 112.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6278 0.6463 0.2054)
HSV
hsv(62, 96%, 65%)
LAB
lab(65.20% -18.14 66.84)
LCH
lch(65.20% 69.26 105.18)
CMYK
cmyk(4%, 0%, 96%, 35%)

Etymology

Tracer
adjective

Old French tracier, to trace — sharing root with English trace and track. As a color modifier, tracer implies a saturated-and-streak-of-light quality, the bright color of military-tracer-round and long-exposure-photography light-trail visual streak. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to flashing and streaking in usage.

Margarita
noun

The Mexican-American cocktail of tequila, lime, and triple sec — invented in the late 1930s on the Mexico–US border and served in a salt-rimmed glass. Margarita color refers specifically to a fresh-poured margarita in a coupe: a soft, slightly cool warm yellow-green with the optical clarity of citrus-and-spirits.

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.

#9fa506
Original
#b39d00
Protanopia
#b3a01f
Deuteranopia
#ab9a8c
Tritanopia
#989898
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
2.67:1
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
7.86:1

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
##9FA506
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6278 0.6463 0.2054)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.153

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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