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Coruscating Primrose

#a8b427
Notes

Coruscating Primrose (#A8B427) 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 (65°, 64%, 43%) 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
#a8b427
RGB
rgb(168, 180, 39)
HSL
hsl(65, 64%, 43%)
HWB
hwb(65 15% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.6% 0.155 114.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6675 0.7044 0.2676)
HSV
hsv(65, 78%, 71%)
LAB
lab(70.26% -20.95 64.52)
LCH
lch(70.26% 67.83 107.99)
CMYK
cmyk(7%, 0%, 78%, 29%)

Etymology

Coruscating
adjective

Latin coruscāns, flashing — present-participle of coruscāre. As a color modifier, coruscating implies a saturated-and-rapidly-flashing quality, the bright color of lightning-strike atmospheric-electrical-discharge against the night-sky. Sits at the bright-and-flashing end of the grid, parallel to flashing and flickering in usage.

Primrose
noun

Primula vulgaris, the European primrose whose pale yellow flowers appear in early spring — prima rosa (first rose) for its early bloom. The color refers to a fresh primrose in March: a soft, slightly cool pale yellow with the satin finish of five-petaled flower with darker yellow center. Cooler than cowslip.

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.

#a8b427
Original
#c1ab00
Protanopia
#c1ad34
Deuteranopia
#b3a99a
Tritanopia
#a7a7a7
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
2.28:1
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
9.22:1

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
##A8B427
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6675 0.7044 0.2676)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.155

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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