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Whispered Amalfi

#a9b393
Notes

Whispered Amalfi (#A9B393) is a true lime with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (79°, 17%, 64%) 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 indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a9b393
RGB
rgb(169, 179, 147)
HSL
hsl(79, 17%, 64%)
HWB
hwb(79 58% 30%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.0% 0.046 121.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6699 0.7007 0.5883)
HSV
hsv(79, 18%, 70%)
LAB
lab(71.41% -9.23 15.19)
LCH
lch(71.41% 17.77 121.27)
CMYK
cmyk(6%, 0%, 18%, 30%)

Etymology

Whispered
adjective

The past participle of whisper, used metaphorically as a color modifier for hues that read as barely audible — the visual equivalent of a sound so quiet you have to lean in to catch it. Whispered pink, whispered gray: very low saturation combined with high lightness, almost at the perception threshold. Sits at the pale-bucket extreme alongside faint and ghostly.

Amalfi
noun

The Italian Mediterranean coast — and the lemon-yellow of Amalfi Sfusato lemons (twice the size of common lemons, used in limoncello). Amalfi refers to a fresh Sfusato lemon at midday on the Tyrrhenian coast: a saturated, slightly cool yellow with the satin finish of citrus rind. Brighter than limone.

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.

#a9b393
Original
#b7af91
Protanopia
#b6af94
Deuteranopia
#acb0aa
Tritanopia
#afafaf
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
2.20:1
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
9.56:1

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
##A9B393
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6699 0.7007 0.5883)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.046

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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