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Defined Solarium

#bda959
Notes

Defined Solarium (#BDA959) 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°, 43%, 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
#bda959
RGB
rgb(189, 169, 89)
HSL
hsl(48, 43%, 55%)
HWB
hwb(48 35% 26%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.5% 0.103 95.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7280 0.6655 0.3935)
HSV
hsv(48, 53%, 74%)
LAB
lab(69.41% -3.14 43.49)
LCH
lch(69.41% 43.61 94.13)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 11%, 53%, 26%)

Etymology

Defined
adjective

Latin dēfīnīre, to set bounds — past-participle of define. As a color modifier, defined implies a clear-and-edge-distinct-and-precise quality where the hue carries the visual register of sharp-bounded-and-clearly-delimited surface. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to crisp and sharp in usage.

Solarium
noun

A glass-roofed sunroom — particularly the Victorian and Edwardian solarium of British country houses, designed to capture warm sunlight on cool days. Solarium as a color refers to the warm yellow of sun-bleached interior wood and faded yellow-painted plaster: a soft, slightly muted warm yellow with the matte finish of UV-aged surface.

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.

#bda959
Original
#b7a652
Protanopia
#bcac5c
Deuteranopia
#ca9e96
Tritanopia
#a7a7a7
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
2.34:1
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
8.98:1

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
##BDA959
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7280 0.6655 0.3935)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.103

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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