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Pale Jiang

#c59c9f
Notes

Pale Jiang (#C59C9F) is a true red 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 (356°, 26%, 69%) places it in the muted 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 cyan. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#c59c9f
RGB
rgb(197, 156, 159)
HSL
hsl(356, 26%, 69%)
HWB
hwb(356 61% 23%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.1% 0.049 13.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7472 0.6180 0.6256)
HSV
hsv(356, 21%, 77%)
LAB
lab(68.13% 15.68 4.26)
LCH
lch(68.13% 16.25 15.19)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 21%, 19%, 23%)

Etymology

Pale
adjective

From the Latin pallidus, pale, wan — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as low-saturation and high-light. Pale pink, pale yellow: low saturation combined with high lightness. Sits at the pale-bucket center alongside light and soft.

Jiang
noun

A deep crimson historical Chinese color — used in the jiangcao (deep-crimson) silks of Tang-dynasty court robes and the lacquer of Han-period burial chambers. The color refers to a jiang-dyed silk in the Forbidden City collection: a deep, slightly cool dark red with the matte finish of multi-bath dyeing. Deeper than hong, cooler than karakurenai.

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.

#c59c9f
Original
#a3a29f
Protanopia
#aca99e
Deuteranopia
#cd999d
Tritanopia
#a5a5a5
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
2.43:1
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
8.63:1

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
##C59C9F
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7472 0.6180 0.6256)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.049

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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