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Pleasant Yùhuáng

#a9b365
Notes

Pleasant Yùhuáng (#A9B365) 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 (68°, 34%, 55%) 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
#a9b365
RGB
rgb(169, 179, 101)
HSL
hsl(68, 34%, 55%)
HWB
hwb(68 40% 30%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.1% 0.103 114.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6699 0.7007 0.4339)
HSV
hsv(68, 44%, 70%)
LAB
lab(70.60% -15.49 38.53)
LCH
lch(70.60% 41.53 111.90)
CMYK
cmyk(6%, 0%, 44%, 30%)

Etymology

Pleasant
adjective

From the French plaisant, pleasing — used as a color modifier since the fifteenth century for hues that read as agreeable, the kind of color that wears well over a long viewing without becoming demanding or fatiguing. Pleasant green, pleasant rose: moderate saturation combined with optical comfort. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside easy and calm.

Yùhuáng
noun

Literally jade-yellow in Chinese — a soft, slightly cool pale yellow used in ceremonial hetian nephrite jade and in the silks of Qing-dynasty consort robes. The color refers to a polished pale-yellow nephrite cabochon: a soft, slightly cool pale yellow with the satin finish of fine jade.

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.

#a9b365
Original
#bdac5f
Protanopia
#bcad69
Deuteranopia
#b1aba0
Tritanopia
#ababab
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
2.25:1
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
9.32:1

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
##A9B365
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6699 0.7007 0.4339)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.103

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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