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Acid Canvas

#caa939
Notes

Acid Canvas (#CAA939) 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 (46°, 58%, 51%) 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
#caa939
RGB
rgb(202, 169, 57)
HSL
hsl(46, 58%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(46 22% 21%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.4% 0.132 92.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7712 0.6676 0.3056)
HSV
hsv(46, 72%, 79%)
LAB
lab(70.34% 0.31 59.35)
LCH
lch(70.34% 59.35 89.70)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 16%, 72%, 21%)

Etymology

Acid
adjective

Latin acidus, sour — sharing root with English acrid and acerbic. As a color modifier, acid implies a saturated-and-citric-and-zingy quality, the bright color of lemon-and-lime citrus-fruit-flesh and acid-yellow fluorescent-pigment surfaces. Sits at the bright-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to acidic and electric in usage.

Canvas
noun

A heavyweight plain-weave cotton or linen fabric — used for ship sails (the original meaning), painter's canvas, and military tent construction. The color refers to undyed natural cotton canvas: a soft, slightly cool pale tan with the textured matte finish of plant-fiber weave.

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.

#caa939
Original
#bba628
Protanopia
#c4b03f
Deuteranopia
#da9b92
Tritanopia
#a8a8a8
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
2.27:1
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
9.25:1

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
##CAA939
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7712 0.6676 0.3056)
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