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Cool Mocha

#b19556
Notes

Cool Mocha (#B19556) is a true amber 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 (42°, 37%, 52%) 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b19556
RGB
rgb(177, 149, 86)
HSL
hsl(42, 37%, 52%)
HWB
hwb(42 34% 31%)
OKLCH
oklch(68.1% 0.089 86.1)
HSV
hsv(42, 51%, 69%)
LAB
lab(62.94% 2.28 36.93)
LCH
lch(62.94% 37.00 86.47)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 16%, 51%, 31%)

Etymology

Cool
adjective

Old English cōl, of low temperature — used as a color modifier as the complement to warm. Cool gray, cool blue: the optical impression of a slight blue-green shift, even within otherwise warm or neutral hues. Sits across the crisp, hushed, pale, and neutral buckets.

Mocha
noun

A variety of agate from the Yemeni port of al-Mukhā — characterized by tree-like dendritic inclusions in a yellow-tan ground. Also the Yemeni coffee that gave its name to the chocolate-coffee drink. The color refers to a polished mocha-agate cabochon: a soft, slightly muted warm tan with the matte finish of cryptocrystalline silica.

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

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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.

#b19556
Original
#a39451
Protanopia
#a99b58
Deuteranopia
#be8b86
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
2.88:1
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
7.30:1

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