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Pulsing Ares Chartreuse

#d9cd46
Notes

Pulsing Ares Chartreuse (#D9CD46) is a true yellow with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (55°, 66%, 56%) 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
#d9cd46
RGB
rgb(217, 205, 70)
HSL
hsl(55, 66%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(55 27% 15%)
OKLCH
oklch(83.4% 0.152 104.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.8429 0.8055 0.3684)
HSV
hsv(55, 68%, 85%)
LAB
lab(81.21% -11.26 65.62)
LCH
lch(81.21% 66.58 99.73)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 6%, 68%, 15%)

Etymology

Pulsing
adjective

The progressive participle of pulse, to throb. Used as a color modifier for hues that read as if they were alternating between two states of luminance — the vibration of a high-saturation color against a contrasting background. Sits in the bright-bucket center alongside electric, with the implication of optical motion rather than static luminance.

Ares
modifier

Greek Ἄρης, god-of-war. As a color modifier, ares implies a war-god-and-iron-and-blood quality, the visual register of Olympian-Ares-and-Spartan-temple-Ares hand-war-god-and-iron-and-blood Olympian-Ares-and-Spartan-temple-and-Areopagus ares-and-war-god-and-iron-and-blood surfaces under Olympian-Ares-and-Spartan-temple-and-Areopagus Athenian-Acropolis-and-rocky-outcrop war-god-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to zeus and atlas in usage.

Chartreuse
noun

The yellow-green French liqueur made by Carthusian monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery since 1737, from a recipe of 130 herbs known to only two living monks at any time. The color is the base spirit chartreuse jaune in a glass: a saturated, slightly green yellow that's brighter than lemon and warmer than lime. The liqueur gave the color its name, not the other way around.

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.

#d9cd46
Original
#dfc632
Protanopia
#e3cd4f
Deuteranopia
#e9bfb2
Tritanopia
#c6c6c6
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
1.64:1
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
12.77:1

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
##D9CD46
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.8429 0.8055 0.3684)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.152

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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