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Loud Sigil Goldenrod

#e6bd0e
Notes

Loud Sigil Goldenrod (#E6BD0E) is a true amber with a neon character. It sits at the high-saturation edge of its family. Use it sparingly, as signage, accent, or highlight against darker surfaces. Its HSL profile (49°, 89%, 48%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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
#e6bd0e
RGB
rgb(230, 189, 14)
HSL
hsl(49, 89%, 48%)
HWB
hwb(49 5% 10%)
OKLCH
oklch(81.1% 0.164 92.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.8762 0.7473 0.2585)
HSV
hsv(49, 94%, 90%)
LAB
lab(78.02% 0.79 78.30)
LCH
lch(78.02% 78.30 89.42)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 18%, 94%, 10%)

Etymology

Loud
adjective

Old English hlūd, making noise — borrowed metaphorically as a color word since the nineteenth century. Loud red, loud yellow: a color so saturated it announces itself without needing surrounding context. Sits in the bright-bucket extreme alongside electric and striking. Carries a slightly pejorative implication of excess.

Sigil
modifier

Latin sigillum, little-sign-or-seal. As a color modifier, sigil implies a magical-seal-and-grimoire-symbol quality, the visual register of medieval-grimoire-and-Solomonic-sigil hand-magical-seal-and-grimoire-symbol medieval-grimoire-and-Solomonic-sigil-and-Renaissance-occult sigil-and-magical-seal-and-grimoire-symbol surfaces under medieval-grimoire-and-Solomonic-sigil-and-Renaissance-occult parchment-and-vellum-and-quill grimoire-and-occult-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to rune and omen in usage.

Goldenrod
noun

Solidago, the late-summer wildflower of North American meadows whose tall sprays of small yellow flowers signal the end of the growing season. The color refers to the flower head at full bloom: a warm, slightly muted yellow-orange with the matte finish of small clustered florets. Cooler than mustard, deeper than dandelion. The state flower of Kentucky and Nebraska, a pollinator magnet, and the original native dye for early American homespun.

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.

#e6bd0e
Original
#d4ba00
Protanopia
#dec623
Deuteranopia
#faaca1
Tritanopia
#b9b9b9
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
1.80:1
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
11.65:1

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
##E6BD0E
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.8762 0.7473 0.2585)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.164

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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