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Charged Yunnan

#bdbc2b
Notes

Charged Yunnan (#BDBC2B) 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 (60°, 63%, 45%) 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
#bdbc2b
RGB
rgb(189, 188, 43)
HSL
hsl(60, 63%, 45%)
HWB
hwb(60 17% 26%)
OKLCH
oklch(77.2% 0.156 109.1)
HSV
hsv(60, 77%, 74%)
LAB
lab(74.16% -15.81 67.46)
LCH
lch(74.16% 69.29 103.19)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 1%, 77%, 26%)

Etymology

Charged
adjective

Old French chargier, to load — past-participle of charge, sharing root with cargo. As a color modifier, charged implies a saturated-and-electrically-loaded quality where the hue carries visual potential-energy. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to electrified and energetic in usage.

Yunnan
noun

The southwestern Chinese province — and the deep yellow of Yunnan Pu-erh tea liquor and the yellow stripe in the jīnhuáng glaze of Tang-dynasty Yunnan ceramics. Yunnan refers to a fresh-brewed Yunnan Pu-erh in a porcelain cup: a saturated, slightly red-shifted gold-yellow with the optical depth of fermented-tea liquor.

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.

#bdbc2b
Original
#ccb400
Protanopia
#ceb838
Deuteranopia
#cbb0a1
Tritanopia
#b2b2b2
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
10.39:1

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