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Flat Lemonade

#b9bc5a
Notes

Flat Lemonade (#B9BC5A) 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 (62°, 42%, 55%) 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
#b9bc5a
RGB
rgb(185, 188, 90)
HSL
hsl(62, 42%, 55%)
HWB
hwb(62 35% 26%)
OKLCH
oklch(77.3% 0.122 110.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7276 0.7369 0.4069)
HSV
hsv(62, 52%, 74%)
LAB
lab(74.20% -14.62 48.58)
LCH
lch(74.20% 50.73 106.75)
CMYK
cmyk(2%, 0%, 52%, 26%)

Etymology

Flat
adjective

Old Norse flatr, flat / level. As a color modifier, flat implies a clear-and-evenly-spread quality where the hue carries the matte-finish visual register of unmodulated single-plane surface. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to level and even in usage.

Lemonade
noun

The classic citrus drink — fresh lemon juice diluted with water and sweetener, served chilled in summer. Lemonade refers to the color of fresh-squeezed lemonade in a clear glass: a soft, slightly cool pale yellow with the optical clarity of citrus-juice-and-water. Cooler than mayonnaise.

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.

#b9bc5a
Original
#c9b551
Protanopia
#cab85f
Deuteranopia
#c4b2a6
Tritanopia
#b4b4b4
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
##B9BC5A
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7276 0.7369 0.4069)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.122

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.

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