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Reposeful Pecan

#bc9f30
Notes

Reposeful Pecan (#BC9F30) 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°, 59%, 46%) 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
#bc9f30
RGB
rgb(188, 159, 48)
HSL
hsl(48, 59%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(48 19% 26%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.9% 0.129 93.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7188 0.6277 0.2731)
HSV
hsv(48, 74%, 74%)
LAB
lab(66.29% -0.92 58.42)
LCH
lch(66.29% 58.43 90.90)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 15%, 74%, 26%)

Etymology

Reposeful
adjective

Latin repōnere, to put back — adjectival suffix -ful. As a color modifier, reposeful implies a clear-and-restful-and-still quality, the calm color of pre-modern monastic cloister-and-refectory meditative-and-silent interior architecture. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to peaceful and placid in usage.

Pecan
noun

Carya illinoinensis, a North American hickory whose nut was a staple of pre-Columbian diet across the Mississippi watershed. The English name traces to the Algonquian pakani. The color refers to the meat of a shelled pecan: a warm, slightly red-toned tan with the matte finish of dried plant tissue. Warmer than almond, more saturated than walnut, with the autumn-orchard sweetness implied by the word.

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.

#bc9f30
Original
#b09c1d
Protanopia
#b7a537
Deuteranopia
#cb9289
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
2.58:1
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
8.14:1

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
##BC9F30
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7188 0.6277 0.2731)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.129

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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