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Soft Yùhuáng

#a1a58a
Notes

Soft Yùhuáng (#A1A58A) is a true yellow with a warm character. It leans warm, pulling light toward red, orange, and yellow. Naturally inviting, it suits editorial and hospitality contexts. Its HSL profile (69°, 13%, 59%) places it in the muted 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
#a1a58a
RGB
rgb(161, 165, 138)
HSL
hsl(69, 13%, 59%)
HWB
hwb(69 54% 35%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.1% 0.038 114.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6342 0.6465 0.5514)
HSV
hsv(69, 16%, 65%)
LAB
lab(66.77% -6.25 13.54)
LCH
lch(66.77% 14.91 114.78)
CMYK
cmyk(2%, 0%, 16%, 35%)

Etymology

Soft
adjective

Old English sōfte, gentle — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as low-contrast and unaggressive. Soft pink, soft gray: low saturation combined with optical gentleness. Sits across the hushed and pale buckets alongside gentle.

Yùhuáng
noun

Literally jade-yellow in Chinese — a soft, slightly cool pale yellow used in ceremonial hetian nephrite jade and in the silks of Qing-dynasty consort robes. The color refers to a polished pale-yellow nephrite cabochon: a soft, slightly cool pale yellow with the satin finish of fine jade.

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.

#a1a58a
Original
#a9a288
Protanopia
#a9a38b
Deuteranopia
#a4a29d
Tritanopia
#a2a2a2
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
2.54:1
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
8.26:1

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
##A1A58A
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6342 0.6465 0.5514)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.038

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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