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Live Amarillo

#dbd15d
Notes

Live Amarillo (#DBD15D) 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 (55°, 64%, 61%) 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
#dbd15d
RGB
rgb(219, 209, 93)
HSL
hsl(55, 64%, 61%)
HWB
hwb(55 36% 14%)
OKLCH
oklch(84.6% 0.137 104.4)
HSV
hsv(55, 58%, 86%)
LAB
lab(82.62% -11.00 57.55)
LCH
lch(82.62% 58.59 100.82)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 5%, 58%, 14%)

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.

Amarillo
noun

The Spanish word for yellow — and the Texas city named for the surrounding subsoil clay. The color refers to amarillo-dyed Spanish silk: a saturated, slightly red yellow with the satin finish of plant-and-mordant dye. The Spanish cousin of yellow.

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.

#dbd15d
Original
#e1ca51
Protanopia
#e5d063
Deuteranopia
#eac4b8
Tritanopia
#cbcbcb
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
1.58:1
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
13.29:1

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