Warm Iowa
Warm Iowa (#E8F3B3) is a soft yellow with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (70°, 73%, 83%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English wearm, of moderate heat — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as containing red, orange, or yellow undertones. Warm gray, warm white: not necessarily a temperature, but the optical impression of a slight red-orange shift. Sits across the crisp and neutral buckets.
The American corn-belt state — and the saturated yellow of Iowa cornfields at peak harvest, Iowa State athletic uniforms, and the Iowa Hawkeyes gold-and-black branding. Iowa refers to Iowa dent corn at harvest: a saturated, slightly red yellow with the matte finish of cured grain. Warmer than maize.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.