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Loud Wallflower

#ad9e02
Notes

Loud Wallflower (#AD9E02) is a deep 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 (55°, 98%, 34%) places it in the highly saturated band at a dark 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
#ad9e02
RGB
rgb(173, 158, 2)
HSL
hsl(55, 98%, 34%)
HWB
hwb(55 1% 32%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.1% 0.145 102.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6685 0.6217 0.1979)
HSV
hsv(55, 99%, 68%)
LAB
lab(64.44% -8.29 67.35)
LCH
lch(64.44% 67.86 97.02)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 9%, 99%, 32%)

Etymology

Loud
adjective

Old English hlūd, making noise — borrowed metaphorically as a color word since the nineteenth century. Loud red, loud yellow: a color so saturated it announces itself without needing surrounding context. Sits in the bright-bucket extreme alongside electric and striking. Carries a slightly pejorative implication of excess.

Wallflower
noun

Erysimum cheiri, the European biennial whose fragrant yellow-orange flowers cover medieval-castle walls (the source of the name) and cottage gardens in late spring. The color refers to a fresh wallflower bloom in May: a saturated, slightly red yellow with the satin finish of four-petaled mustard-family flower.

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.

#ad9e02
Original
#ae9900
Protanopia
#b29f1a
Deuteranopia
#bb9286
Tritanopia
#969696
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
2.74:1
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
7.67:1

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
##AD9E02
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6685 0.6217 0.1979)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.145

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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