colors
Back to gallery

Warm Curcuma

#b3bd68
Notes

Warm Curcuma (#B3BD68) 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 (67°, 39%, 57%) 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 blue. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b3bd68
RGB
rgb(179, 189, 104)
HSL
hsl(67, 39%, 57%)
HWB
hwb(67 41% 26%)
OKLCH
oklch(77.2% 0.110 114.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7091 0.7399 0.4499)
HSV
hsv(67, 45%, 74%)
LAB
lab(74.18% -16.24 41.61)
LCH
lch(74.18% 44.67 111.31)
CMYK
cmyk(5%, 0%, 45%, 26%)

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.

Curcuma
noun

The Linnaean genus name for turmeric — Curcuma longa — used in pigment vocabulary for the pure curcumin yellow extracted from the rhizome. Curcuma as a color refers specifically to the pigment isolated from C. longa: a saturated, slightly cool deep yellow with the matte finish of plant-derived pigment. The botanical-Latin cousin of haldi.

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.

#b3bd68
Original
#c8b661
Protanopia
#c7b76c
Deuteranopia
#bcb4a9
Tritanopia
#b5b5b5
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
2.02:1
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
10.40:1

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
##B3BD68
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7091 0.7399 0.4499)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.110

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.

Related Colors

Canvas