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Alight Yolk

#a9aa0b
Notes

Alight Yolk (#A9AA0B) is a true yellow with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (60°, 88%, 35%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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
#a9aa0b
RGB
rgb(169, 170, 11)
HSL
hsl(60, 88%, 35%)
HWB
hwb(60 4% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.4% 0.154 110.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6634 0.6665 0.2178)
HSV
hsv(60, 94%, 67%)
LAB
lab(67.43% -16.20 68.27)
LCH
lch(67.43% 70.17 103.35)
CMYK
cmyk(1%, 0%, 94%, 33%)

Etymology

Alight
adjective

Old English ā-lihtan, to set alight — past-participle of alight. As a color modifier, alight implies a saturated-and-currently-illuminated quality, the bright color of Christmas-tree and Diwali-lamp festival-decoration illuminated-and-twinkling emission. Sits at the bright-and-warm end of the grid, parallel to aflame and aglow in usage.

Yolk
noun

The yellow center of a chicken egg — colored by carotenoid pigments in the hen's feed, ranging from pale lemon (commercial barn-raised) to deep orange (pasture-raised, marigold-supplemented). The color refers to a fresh free-range yolk against the white: a saturated, slightly orange-shifted yellow with the satiny surface of a vitellus membrane. Warmer than canary, deeper than sunflower; the unifying yellow of breakfast.

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.

#a9aa0b
Original
#b9a200
Protanopia
#baa622
Deuteranopia
#b69e90
Tritanopia
#9e9e9e
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
2.49:1
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
8.44:1

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
##A9AA0B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6634 0.6665 0.2178)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.154

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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