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Live Kohaku

#d97f21
Notes

Live Kohaku (#D97F21) is a true orange with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (31°, 74%, 49%) 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
#d97f21
RGB
rgb(217, 127, 33)
HSL
hsl(31, 74%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(31 13% 15%)
OKLCH
oklch(68.0% 0.148 60.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.8027 0.5150 0.2240)
HSV
hsv(31, 85%, 85%)
LAB
lab(61.69% 28.49 60.85)
LCH
lch(61.69% 67.19 64.91)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 41%, 85%, 15%)

Etymology

Live
adjective

Old English libban, to live — used as a color word since the nineteenth century for hues that read as active or animate. Live wire, live color: the implication is luminance combined with the optical impression of internal motion. Sits in the bright-bucket center alongside vivid and vibrant.

Kohaku
noun

The Japanese name for amber — fossilized tree resin imported from Baltic deposits since the Heian period and worked into ornamental beads, sword fittings, and netsuke. Also the name of a koi cultivar with red markings on white. The color refers to a polished Baltic-amber bead in a Japanese tea-ceremony display: a warm, slightly translucent gold-orange with the depth of resin. Cooler than honey, deeper than tangerine.

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.

#d97f21
Original
#9b880a
Protanopia
#b09d22
Deuteranopia
#ee6a6e
Tritanopia
#8b8b8b
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
3.00:1
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
7.01:1

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
##D97F21
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.8027 0.5150 0.2240)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.148

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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