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Delicate Daffodil

#a8a48d
Notes

Delicate Daffodil (#A8A48D) is a true amber 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 (51°, 13%, 61%) 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
#a8a48d
RGB
rgb(168, 164, 141)
HSL
hsl(51, 13%, 61%)
HWB
hwb(51 55% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.6% 0.033 99.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6561 0.6437 0.5621)
HSV
hsv(51, 16%, 66%)
LAB
lab(67.13% -2.56 12.47)
LCH
lch(67.13% 12.73 101.62)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 2%, 16%, 34%)

Etymology

Delicate
adjective

Latin dēlicātus, charming / refined. As a color modifier, delicate implies a pale-and-finely-detailed-and-careful quality where the hue carries the visual register of Wedgwood-and-Sèvres finely-detailed-and-carefully-painted porcelain-and-ceramic surface. Sits at the pale-and-delicate end of the grid, parallel to fragile and fine in usage.

Daffodil
noun

Narcissus pseudonarcissus, the wild daffodil of British and European woodland. The color is the trumpet-shaped corona of a fully open daffodil at peak spring: a saturated, slightly orange-shifted yellow with the satiny finish of waxy petal tissue. Warmer than lemon, brighter than buttercup, with the seasonal weight of a flower that arrives before the trees have leaves.

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.

#a8a48d
Original
#a9a28c
Protanopia
#aaa48e
Deuteranopia
#ada19d
Tritanopia
#a3a3a3
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
2.51:1
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
8.36:1

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
##A8A48D
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6561 0.6437 0.5621)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.033

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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