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Dependable Mead

#d4bb83
Notes

Dependable Mead (#D4BB83) 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 (41°, 49%, 67%) 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
#d4bb83
RGB
rgb(212, 187, 131)
HSL
hsl(41, 49%, 67%)
HWB
hwb(41 51% 17%)
OKLCH
oklch(80.0% 0.079 86.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.8151 0.7369 0.5409)
HSV
hsv(41, 38%, 83%)
LAB
lab(76.79% 1.03 31.65)
LCH
lch(76.79% 31.66 88.14)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 12%, 38%, 17%)

Etymology

Dependable
adjective

Latin dē-pendere, to hang from — adjectival suffix -able. As a color modifier, dependable implies a clear-and-trustworthy-and-consistent quality where the hue carries the visual register of consistently-performing-and-counted-on design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to reliable and trustworthy in usage.

Mead
noun

Honey wine — fermented honey-and-water, one of the oldest known alcoholic beverages, central to Norse and Anglo-Saxon halls. The color refers to a young Polish miód pitny: a soft, slightly cool warm gold-yellow with the optical clarity of honey-derived alcohol. Warmer than champagne, lighter than whiskey.

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.

#d4bb83
Original
#c8ba7f
Protanopia
#cec085
Deuteranopia
#e0b2ad
Tritanopia
#bcbcbc
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
1.87:1
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
11.24:1

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
##D4BB83
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.8151 0.7369 0.5409)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.079

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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