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Aflame Rough Chartreuse

#b9ab19
Notes

Aflame Rough Chartreuse (#B9AB19) is a true yellow with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (55°, 76%, 41%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid 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
#b9ab19
RGB
rgb(185, 171, 25)
HSL
hsl(55, 76%, 41%)
HWB
hwb(55 10% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.1% 0.149 103.3)
HSV
hsv(55, 86%, 73%)
LAB
lab(69.12% -9.38 67.74)
LCH
lch(69.12% 68.38 97.88)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 8%, 86%, 27%)

Etymology

Aflame
adjective

Old English on-flamme, on-fire. As a color modifier, aflame implies a saturated-and-burning-bright quality, the bright color of autumn-Maple-and-Oak peak-color deciduous-foliage and Bonfire-Night large-flame fire emission. Sits at the bright-and-warm end of the grid, parallel to flaming and blazing in usage.

Rough
modifier

Old English rūh, rough. As a color modifier, rough implies an unfinished-and-coarse quality, the visual register of unfinished-stone-and-burlap hand-quarried-and-unprocessed coarse-and-unfinished-textile-and-stone hand-quarried-and-coarse surfaces under hand-quarried-and-unfinished workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to hewn and bark in usage.

Chartreuse
noun

The yellow-green French liqueur made by Carthusian monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery since 1737, from a recipe of 130 herbs known to only two living monks at any time. The color is the base spirit chartreuse jaune in a glass: a saturated, slightly green yellow that's brighter than lemon and warmer than lime. The liqueur gave the color its name, not the other way around.

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.

#b9ab19
Original
#bca500
Protanopia
#c0ac28
Deuteranopia
#c89e92
Tritanopia
#a3a3a3
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
2.36:1
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
8.90:1

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