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Surveyed Vireo

#a0881d
Notes

Surveyed Vireo (#A0881D) is a true 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 (49°, 69%, 37%) 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
#a0881d
RGB
rgb(160, 136, 29)
HSL
hsl(49, 69%, 37%)
HWB
hwb(49 11% 37%)
OKLCH
oklch(63.1% 0.121 95.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6121 0.5368 0.2060)
HSV
hsv(49, 82%, 63%)
LAB
lab(57.24% -1.77 55.72)
LCH
lch(57.24% 55.75 91.82)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 15%, 82%, 37%)

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.

Vireo
noun

The genus Vireo — small North American songbirds with yellow-tinted plumage. Particularly V. flavifrons (yellow-throated vireo) whose males have bright yellow throats and breasts. The color refers to a yellow-throated vireo's breast: a soft, slightly cool yellow with the matte finish of feather 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.

#a0881d
Original
#978500
Protanopia
#9d8d25
Deuteranopia
#ad7d74
Tritanopia
#858585
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
3.48:1
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
6.03:1

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
##A0881D
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6121 0.5368 0.2060)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.121

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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