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Trim Mullein

#a9a57c
Notes

Trim Mullein (#A9A57C) 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 (55°, 21%, 57%) 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
#a9a57c
RGB
rgb(169, 165, 124)
HSL
hsl(55, 21%, 57%)
HWB
hwb(55 49% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.5% 0.057 103.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6600 0.6476 0.5038)
HSV
hsv(55, 27%, 66%)
LAB
lab(67.13% -5.28 21.83)
LCH
lch(67.13% 22.46 103.59)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 2%, 27%, 34%)

Etymology

Trim
adjective

Old English trymman, to make firm — sharing root with firm. As a color modifier, trim implies a clear-and-neatly-arranged quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-edited surface-detail. Sits at the crisp-and-neat end of the grid, parallel to neat and tidy in usage.

Mullein
noun

Verbascum thapsus, the European biennial whose tall yellow flower spikes appear in second-year growth. Used in classical antiquity as a torch (oiled flower spikes) and as a medicinal cough treatment. The color refers to a fresh Mullein flower spike at midsummer: a saturated, slightly cool yellow with the matte finish of small five-petaled flowers along a tall stem.

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.

#a9a57c
Original
#aca279
Protanopia
#aea47d
Deuteranopia
#b09f9a
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
##A9A57C
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6600 0.6476 0.5038)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.057

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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