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Smooth Amarillo

#b2ae78
Notes

Smooth Amarillo (#B2AE78) 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 (56°, 27%, 58%) 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
#b2ae78
RGB
rgb(178, 174, 120)
HSL
hsl(56, 27%, 58%)
HWB
hwb(56 47% 30%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.1% 0.073 104.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6953 0.6829 0.4948)
HSV
hsv(56, 33%, 70%)
LAB
lab(70.24% -7.02 28.29)
LCH
lch(70.24% 29.15 103.94)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 2%, 33%, 30%)

Etymology

Smooth
adjective

Old English smōþ, level, polished — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as continuous without texture or break. Smooth tan, smooth gray: moderate saturation combined with optical evenness. Sits in the crisp-bucket alongside even.

Amarillo
noun

The Spanish word for yellow — and the Texas city named for the surrounding subsoil clay. The color refers to amarillo-dyed Spanish silk: a saturated, slightly red yellow with the satin finish of plant-and-mordant dye. The Spanish 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.

#b2ae78
Original
#b7aa74
Protanopia
#b9ad7a
Deuteranopia
#baa7a0
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
2.28:1
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
9.22:1

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
##B2AE78
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6953 0.6829 0.4948)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.073

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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