colors
Back to gallery

Charged Helen Goldenrod

#c59527
Notes

Charged Helen Goldenrod (#C59527) is a true amber with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (42°, 67%, 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#c59527
RGB
rgb(197, 149, 39)
HSL
hsl(42, 67%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(42 15% 23%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.8% 0.132 83.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7436 0.5918 0.2472)
HSV
hsv(42, 80%, 77%)
LAB
lab(64.58% 8.12 60.40)
LCH
lch(64.58% 60.94 82.34)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 24%, 80%, 23%)

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.

Helen
modifier

Greek Ἑλένη, Helen-of-Troy. As a color modifier, helen implies a Helen-of-Troy-and-fairest-face quality, the visual register of Helen-of-Troy-and-Tyndareus-Sparta hand-Helen-of-Troy-and-fairest-face Helen-of-Troy-and-Tyndareus-Sparta-and-Iliad-Homeric helen-and-Helen-of-Troy-and-fairest-face surfaces under Helen-of-Troy-and-Tyndareus-Sparta-and-Iliad-Homeric Mycenaean-and-Trojan Bronze-Age-Aegean-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to eros and hera in usage.

Goldenrod
noun

Solidago, the late-summer wildflower of North American meadows whose tall sprays of small yellow flowers signal the end of the growing season. The color refers to the flower head at full bloom: a warm, slightly muted yellow-orange with the matte finish of small clustered florets. Cooler than mustard, deeper than dandelion. The state flower of Kentucky and Nebraska, a pollinator magnet, and the original native dye for early American homespun.

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.

#c59527
Original
#a9950f
Protanopia
#b4a22d
Deuteranopia
#d68680
Tritanopia
#979797
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
2.73:1
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
7.70:1

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
##C59527
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7436 0.5918 0.2472)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.132

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.

Related Colors

Canvas