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Orderly Mead

#a68b55
Notes

Orderly Mead (#A68B55) is a true amber 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 (40°, 32%, 49%) 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a68b55
RGB
rgb(166, 139, 85)
HSL
hsl(40, 32%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(40 33% 35%)
OKLCH
oklch(64.9% 0.079 83.8)
HSV
hsv(40, 49%, 65%)
LAB
lab(59.19% 2.97 32.56)
LCH
lch(59.19% 32.70 84.79)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 16%, 49%, 35%)

Etymology

Orderly
adjective

Latin ōrdō, order — adjectival suffix -ly. As a color modifier, orderly implies a clear-and-arranged-and-organized quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-ordered-and-classified placement. Sits at the crisp-and-orderly end of the grid, parallel to methodical and organized in usage.

Mead
noun

Honey wine — fermented honey-and-water, one of the oldest known alcoholic beverages, central to Norse and Anglo-Saxon halls. The color refers to a young Polish miód pitny: a soft, slightly cool warm gold-yellow with the optical clarity of honey-derived alcohol. Warmer than champagne, lighter than whiskey.

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

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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.

#a68b55
Original
#978a51
Protanopia
#9e9157
Deuteranopia
#b2827e
Tritanopia
#8d8d8d
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
3.26:1
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
6.45:1

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