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Tissue Oriole

#b5978b
Notes

Tissue Oriole (#B5978B) is a true orange 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 (17°, 22%, 63%) 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 cyan. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b5978b
RGB
rgb(181, 151, 139)
HSL
hsl(17, 22%, 63%)
HWB
hwb(17 55% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.0% 0.040 43.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6908 0.5965 0.5520)
HSV
hsv(17, 23%, 71%)
LAB
lab(64.82% 9.27 10.49)
LCH
lch(64.82% 14.00 48.54)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 17%, 23%, 29%)

Etymology

Tissue
adjective

Old French tissu, woven-cloth — adjectival usage of tissue. As a color modifier, tissue implies a pale-and-thin-and-translucent quality, the pale color of Edwardian-period fine-tissue-paper gift-wrapping-and-archival-protection thin-and-translucent paper-finish. Sits at the pale-and-thin end of the grid, parallel to onionskin and glassine in usage.

Oriole
noun

The genus Icterus — particularly I. galbula, the Baltimore oriole whose males in breeding plumage are vivid orange with black wings. The color refers to a male Baltimore oriole at full breeding plumage: a saturated, slightly cool orange with the matte finish of carotenoid-pigmented feathers. Brighter than tangerine, warmer than carrot.

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.

#b5978b
Original
#9e9a8a
Protanopia
#a5a08b
Deuteranopia
#bd9394
Tritanopia
#9d9d9d
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
2.70:1
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
7.76:1

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
##B5978B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6908 0.5965 0.5520)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.040

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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