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Manic Mead

#df9e24
Notes

Manic Mead (#DF9E24) is a true amber with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (39°, 75%, 51%) 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
#df9e24
RGB
rgb(223, 158, 36)
HSL
hsl(39, 75%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(39 14% 13%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.4% 0.146 77.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.8365 0.6303 0.2563)
HSV
hsv(39, 84%, 87%)
LAB
lab(69.66% 14.54 66.90)
LCH
lch(69.66% 68.46 77.74)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 29%, 84%, 13%)

Etymology

Manic
adjective

Greek manikós, raving / mad — sharing root with mania. As a color modifier, manic implies a saturated-and-overstimulated-and-extreme quality, the bright color of Andy-Warhol-and-Pop-Art late-Pop-Art repeated-and-multiplied portrait color schemes. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to hyper and frenetic 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.

#df9e24
Original
#b6a100
Protanopia
#c5b12a
Deuteranopia
#f38c88
Tritanopia
#a3a3a3
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
2.32:1
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
9.05:1

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
##DF9E24
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.8365 0.6303 0.2563)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.146

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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