Knock on Wood
#9f9b84
A yellow that is nearly neutral — the hue shows only against a true grey. It is light — black text sits on it comfortably, white text does not.
Hex
#9f9b84
RGB
159, 155, 132
OKLCh
68.7% 0.033 99.1°
CIELAB (D50)
63.8, -1.5, 12.7
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 6 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
- It uses only 23% of the chroma available at this lightness and hue — there is a far more vivid version of this colour inside sRGB.
- As text on white it measures APCA Lc 53.9; on black, Lc -47.9. The sign is the polarity, which the WCAG ratio discards.
- Built into an eleven-step scale, 10 of the 10 adjacent pairs stay ΔE00 2 apart — see the ramp.
- tritanopia shifts it by ΔE00 5.9 — no blue cone.
Text on this colour
White text
2.80:1 — fails AA
Black text
7.50:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at7.50:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#7b7761 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#9f9b84
protanopia
#9b9b84 · ΔE00 2.1
deuteranopia
#9c9c84 · ΔE00 2.1
tritanopia
#9d9d74 · ΔE00 5.9
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isOrestes at ΔE00 0.589: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- OrestesΔE00 0.589 · #9e9b85
- PebbleΔE00 1.081 · #9d9880
- At Ease SoldierΔE00 1.388 · #9e9985
- Milk ThistleΔE00 1.483 · #9e9b88
- Union SpringsΔE00 1.855 · #9c9680
- Grey OliveΔE00 1.886 · #a19a7f
- Into the WildΔE00 2.273 · #999885
- Battle HarbourΔE00 2.348 · #9c9c82
- Potting MossΔE00 2.411 · #a0a089
- Good EarthΔE00 2.455 · #a09883
- Honed SoapstoneΔE00 2.525 · #9d9887
- Slate BrownΔE00 2.543 · #a0987c
11 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.