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Level Zafarani

#c9a036
Notes

Level Zafarani (#C9A036) 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 (43°, 58%, 50%) 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
#c9a036
RGB
rgb(201, 160, 54)
HSL
hsl(43, 58%, 50%)
HWB
hwb(43 21% 21%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.5% 0.129 86.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7629 0.6337 0.2913)
HSV
hsv(43, 73%, 79%)
LAB
lab(67.89% 4.54 58.09)
LCH
lch(67.89% 58.27 85.53)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 20%, 73%, 21%)

Etymology

Level
adjective

Latin libella, small-balance / level-tool — sharing root with libra (balance). As a color modifier, level implies a clear-and-horizontal-true quality where the hue carries the visual register of gravity-perpendicular-and-perfectly-horizontal surface. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to plumb and flat in usage.

Zafarani
noun

The Persian word for saffron-colored — used for the warm yellow-orange of zafarani-čubeh and the saffron-dyed silk of Safavid court robes. The color refers to zafarani-dyed silk: a saturated, slightly red-shifted gold-yellow with the satin finish of plant-dyed silk. Warmer than saffron, deeper than zard.

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.

#c9a036
Original
#b39f26
Protanopia
#bdaa3b
Deuteranopia
#da928b
Tritanopia
#a1a1a1
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
2.45:1
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
8.57:1

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
##C9A036
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7629 0.6337 0.2913)
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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