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Vibrant Mead

#ba970b
Notes

Vibrant Mead (#BA970B) is a true amber 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 (48°, 89%, 39%) 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
#ba970b
RGB
rgb(186, 151, 11)
HSL
hsl(48, 89%, 39%)
HWB
hwb(48 4% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(68.9% 0.139 91.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7075 0.5974 0.2023)
HSV
hsv(48, 94%, 73%)
LAB
lab(63.83% 1.46 66.24)
LCH
lch(63.83% 66.25 88.74)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 19%, 94%, 27%)

Etymology

Vibrant
adjective

From the Latin vibrare, to shake — used as a color word since the seventeenth century for hues that read as alive and resonant. Vibrant orange, vibrant green: the implication is saturation combined with the optical impression of slight motion or energy. Sits at the bright-bucket center alongside vivid and lively.

Mead
noun

Honey wine — fermented honey-and-water, one of the oldest known alcoholic beverages, central to Norse and Anglo-Saxon halls. The color refers to a young Polish miód pitny: a soft, slightly cool warm gold-yellow with the optical clarity of honey-derived alcohol. Warmer than champagne, lighter than whiskey.

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.

#ba970b
Original
#aa9500
Protanopia
#b29f1b
Deuteranopia
#ca8980
Tritanopia
#949494
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
2.79:1
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
7.52:1

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
##BA970B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7075 0.5974 0.2023)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.139

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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