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Warm Ki-iro

#aaa96e
Notes

Warm Ki-iro (#AAA96E) 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 (59°, 26%, 55%) 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
#aaa96e
RGB
rgb(170, 169, 110)
HSL
hsl(59, 26%, 55%)
HWB
hwb(59 43% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.2% 0.079 107.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6660 0.6629 0.4584)
HSV
hsv(59, 35%, 67%)
LAB
lab(68.06% -8.84 30.62)
LCH
lch(68.06% 31.88 106.10)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 1%, 35%, 33%)

Etymology

Warm
adjective

Old English wearm, of moderate heat — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as containing red, orange, or yellow undertones. Warm gray, warm white: not necessarily a temperature, but the optical impression of a slight red-orange shift. Sits across the crisp and neutral buckets.

Ki-iro
noun

The Japanese word for yellow — built from ki (yellow) and iro (color). Used in the warm palette of ukiyo-e woodblock prints, kintsugi-repaired ceramics, and the gold-leafed wallpaper of Heian-period palaces. The color refers to ki-iro-painted byōbu folding screens: a saturated, slightly cool pure yellow with the matte finish of mineral-pigment-on-paper. The Japanese cousin of yellow.

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.

#aaa96e
Original
#b2a46a
Protanopia
#b3a770
Deuteranopia
#b2a29a
Tritanopia
#a5a5a5
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
2.44:1
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
8.61:1

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
##AAA96E
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6660 0.6629 0.4584)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.079

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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