A vivid light orange, black text passes AA
What color is goldenrod?
goldenrod is a vivid light orange: #daa520 in hex, rgb(218 165 32). Black text on it reaches 9.38:1, passing WCAG AAA. Recolor (recolor.page) shows it on a real page below.
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| Format | Value |
|---|---|
| Keyword | goldenrod |
| Hex | #daa520 |
| RGB | rgb(218 165 32) |
| HSL | hsl(43 74% 49%) |
| OKLCH | oklch(75.2% 0.147 84.0) |
| Nearest Tailwind color | yellow-500 #efb100, 0.048 away in OKLab |
| White text | 2.24:1: AA fails, AAA fails, large text fails |
| Black text | 9.38:1: AA passes, AAA passes, large text passes |
About goldenrod
In OKLCH terms goldenrod has a lightness of 75.2%, a chroma of 0.147 and a hue of 84.0 degrees, a vivid light orange to the eye.
HSL puts its lightness at 49% and OKLCH at 75.2%, 26 points apart: HSL's lightness does not follow what the eye sees, OKLCH's is built to. The nearest CSS named color, orange (#ffa500), is 0.060 away in OKLab: related, but plainly a different color.
For text, goldenrod wants black: 9.38:1 clears even AAA's 7:1, and white at 2.24:1 fails AA. In the hue-sorted table of named colors it sits between sandybrown and darkorange.
In Tailwind CSS 4.3.3 the nearest default color is yellow-500 (#efb100), 0.048 away in OKLab; for the exact color, an arbitrary value such as bg-[#daa520] works.
Tints and shades
- #f9f0df
- #f3e2bf
- #edd39f
- #e7c47d
- #e1b457
- #daa520
- #ab8117
- #7e5e0e
- #543d06
- #2d1f02
- #0b0600
From light to dark: 5 toward white and 5 toward black, mixed in OKLCH a sixth of the way at a time with the hue kept. A step that would repeat its neighbor is left out.
A palette around it
- #daa520
- #0d1b2f
- #b67c00
- #cae0ff
- #5e4e2a
Locked as the first of five swatches, goldenrod gets #0d1b2f, #b67c00, #cae0ff, #5e4e2a from Recolor's generator, a complementary palette, built on the hue opposite. The seed is its hex, so the palette stays the same. Open it in Recolor.
Using goldenrod
As a text color, goldenrod on a black page gives the same 9.38:1.
.notice {
background-color: goldenrod; /* #daa520 */
color: black; /* 9.38:1 */
}Common questions
Does white text pass WCAG AA on goldenrod?
No. White text measures 2.24:1 on goldenrod, under AA's 4.5:1; black text measures 9.38:1 and passes.
Can goldenrod be written in OKLCH?
Yes: oklch(75.2% 0.147 84.0), computed from #daa520. A named color is an sRGB color, so its OKLCH value converts back to the same hex.
Is there a named color close to goldenrod?
No. The nearest, orange (#ffa500), is 0.060 away in OKLab, a different color.