colors
Back to gallery

Flaming Mead

#fa8c0e
Notes

Flaming Mead (#FA8C0E) is a true orange 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 (32°, 96%, 52%) 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#fa8c0e
RGB
rgb(250, 140, 14)
HSL
hsl(32, 96%, 52%)
HWB
hwb(32 5% 2%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.4% 0.174 59.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.9226 0.5706 0.2189)
HSV
hsv(32, 94%, 98%)
LAB
lab(68.84% 34.93 72.83)
LCH
lch(68.84% 80.77 64.37)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 44%, 94%, 2%)

Etymology

Flaming
adjective

Old French flamme, flame — present-participle of flame. As a color modifier, flaming implies a saturated-and-fire-and-bright-color quality, the bright color of autumn-Maple-and-Oak deciduous-foliage fall-color and Yule-log fire emission. Sits at the bright-and-warm end of the grid, parallel to fiery and blazing 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.

#fa8c0e
Original
#ae9800
Protanopia
#c8b20e
Deuteranopia
#ff7278
Tritanopia
#9a9a9a
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
2.38:1
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
8.82:1

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
##FA8C0E
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.9226 0.5706 0.2189)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.174

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.

Related Colors

Canvas