colors
Back to gallery

Serene Yellowtail

#d9d376
Notes

Serene Yellowtail (#D9D376) is a true yellow 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 (56°, 57%, 66%) 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
#d9d376
RGB
rgb(217, 211, 118)
HSL
hsl(56, 57%, 66%)
HWB
hwb(56 46% 15%)
OKLCH
oklch(85.2% 0.116 105.3)
HSV
hsv(56, 46%, 85%)
LAB
lab(83.26% -10.72 46.54)
LCH
lch(83.26% 47.76 102.97)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 3%, 46%, 15%)

Etymology

Serene
adjective

Latin serēnus, clear / unclouded. As a color modifier, serene implies a clear-and-untroubled quality where the hue carries the visual register of cloudless-bright-day atmospheric stability. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to placid and untroubled in usage.

Yellowtail
noun

Seriola lalandi, the Pacific yellowtail amberjack — a sport fish prized in Japanese sushi cuisine as hamachi. The color refers to the yellow stripe along the lateral line: a saturated, slightly cool yellow with the matte finish of carotenoid-pigmented fish skin. Cooler than goldfinch.

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.

#d9d376
Original
#e1cd6e
Protanopia
#e4d17a
Deuteranopia
#e6c8bd
Tritanopia
#cecece
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
1.55:1
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
13.53:1

Related Colors

Canvas