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Citrine Shadow Clear
Color detail

Citrine Shadow Clear

Yellow · Hue 60
Hex
#6E6E21
RGB
rgb(110, 110, 33)
HSL
hsl(60, 54%, 28%)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 0%, 70%, 57%)
Metrics
S 54% · L 28%
Contrast (WCAG)
on white
5.4:1AA
on black
3.9:1AA Large
Save to journalSign in to saveStart palette from thisRecent trail

About this color

Citrine Shadow Clear (#6E6E21) belongs to the yellow family — hue 60°, 54% saturation, 28% lightness. Copy the hex, RGB, or HSL value above, or paste the CSS custom property below into your stylesheet to reference this color directly.

CSS
:root {
  --colorarchive-citrine-shadow-clear: #6E6E21;
  --colorarchive-citrine-shadow-clear-hsl: hsl(60, 54%, 28%);
  --colorarchive-citrine-shadow-clear-rgb: rgb(110, 110, 33);
}

AI Color Names

Let AI suggest alternative poetic names for this color in English and Chinese.

Design Context

WarmMatureLuxurious
Common in

Jewelry · Gourmet Food · Architecture

Pairs well with

Charcoal, deep emerald, or rich brown for elegant compositions

Design tip

Dark yellows and golds work beautifully in premium interfaces. Use for headings, icons, and accent borders on dark backgrounds.

Cultural context ▶

Gold and amber tones represent wealth, wisdom, and prestige. Central to Buddhist and Egyptian visual traditions.

Color Origins

Yellow family

The color of attention, sunlight, and contradiction.

Heritage

Yellow ochre is, with red ochre, one of the two pigments humans have used continuously for the longest time. Indian Yellow — historically made from the urine of cows fed only mango leaves — reached its peak in 17th–18th century Mughal painting before falling out of use. Cadmium yellow, introduced in the 1840s, gave Van Gogh his sunflowers; chrome yellow gave him the wheat fields he died in. Modern PY83 (a hansa yellow) is the durable workhorse of contemporary printing.

Across cultures

In Imperial China yellow was the emperor's color, off-limits to commoners. In medieval Europe yellow was simultaneously sacred (gold halos) and stigmatized (forced-yellow garments imposed on Jews and 'heretics' — the precedent the Nazis revived). In Japan yellow is courage; in Egypt it was the color of mourning. Few colors carry such contradictory meanings across regions.

In the wild

McDonald's golden arches were calibrated for highway visibility — the M is yellow because yellow is the most-recognized color at distance. The Yellow Pages, the New York taxi, the school bus, and the Post-it note are all the same engineered yellow (PMS 116) for the same reason: maximum legibility at minimum cost. Coldplay's 'Yellow' put the color into the cultural mood vocabulary in 2000. IKEA pairs yellow with blue in a deliberate echo of the Swedish flag.

How it reads

Yellow demands attention more aggressively than any other color — the eye's L-cones and M-cones both peak nearby, so yellow appears bright at lower luminance than other hues. It works as an accent, a warning, or a child-friendly primary; it almost never works as a body-text color (contrast against white is too low). At low saturation yellow becomes cream, butter, parchment — quiet and warm; at high saturation it becomes a hazard sign or a sport drink.

This particular tone

A deep, weighted version of the hue — formal, considered, and pairs especially well with off-white and warm metallic accents.

Lightness band: At this depth the hue starts behaving like a neutral — it can substitute for black in many contexts while still carrying a faint chromatic temperature. It pairs especially well with off-whites and warm metallics.

Saturation band: The clear, mid-saturation register is the most common identity sweet spot — saturated enough to register as a 'real' color, restrained enough not to fight typography or photography placed over it.

Brands using a similar color

Within the public brand-guidelines reference catalog, these are the closest matches to #6E6E21.

  • GitHubaccent
    Attention Yellow · #9A6700
    →
  • Microsoftneutral
    Slate Gray · #737373
    →
  • Notionneutral
    Notion Gray · #787774
    →

Cultures using a similar color

From the cultural-palette catalog, these regions feature a color close to #6E6E21.

  • IcelandLopapeysa Sheep Brown
    #7C5A3A · Natural-dye Icelandic wool
    →
  • England (London)Plane Tree Green
    #5C7A5A · Platanus × hispanica, London street tree
    →
  • IndiaHenna Brown
    #8D5524 · Lawsonia inermis paste
    →

Tonal strip

All lightness levels at this hue and saturation. Click any to navigate.

Palette moves

Instead of stopping at one swatch, use nearby, opposite, and tonal neighbors to branch into a broader palette.

Lighter companion
Citrine Dusk Clear
#868628 · hsl(60, 54%, 34%)
Darker companion
Citrine Nocturne Clear
#4F4F17 · hsl(60, 54%, 20%)
Complementary counterpoint
Iris Shadow Clear
#21216E · hsl(240, 54%, 28%)
Analogous lead
Olive Shadow Clear
#546E21 · hsl(80, 54%, 28%)
Analogous echo
Apricot Shadow Clear
#6E5421 · hsl(40, 54%, 28%)
Triadic +120°
Aqua Shadow Clear
#216E6E · hsl(180, 54%, 28%)
Triadic +240°
Fuchsia Shadow Clear
#6E216E · hsl(300, 54%, 28%)
Split-comp +150°
Sapphire Shadow Clear
#21476E · hsl(210, 54%, 28%)
Split-comp +210°
Plum Shadow Clear
#47216E · hsl(270, 54%, 28%)
Export preview
Base: Citrine Shadow Clear #6E6E21
Lighter companion: Citrine Dusk Clear #868628
Darker companion: Citrine Nocturne Clear #4F4F17
Complementary counterpoint: Iris Shadow Clear #21216E
Analogous lead: Olive Shadow Clear #546E21
Analogous echo: Apricot Shadow Clear #6E5421
Triadic +120°: Aqua Shadow Clear #216E6E
Triadic +240°: Fuchsia Shadow Clear #6E216E
Split-comp +150°: Sapphire Shadow Clear #21476E
Split-comp +210°: Plum Shadow Clear #47216E

Compare

See how Citrine Shadow Clear compares side by side with related colors.

vsCitrine Dusk ClearvsCitrine Nocturne ClearvsIris Shadow ClearvsOlive Shadow ClearvsApricot Shadow ClearvsAqua Shadow Clear

Nearest neighbors

The closest archive matches by hue, saturation, and lightness.

Search by hex
Nearby match
Citrine Dusk Clear
#868628 · hsl(60, 54%, 34%)
Nearby match
Canary Shadow Clear
#6E6821 · hsl(55, 54%, 28%)
Nearby match
Citrine Nocturne Clear
#4F4F17 · hsl(60, 54%, 20%)
Nearby match
Citrine Shadow Soft
#60602F · hsl(60, 34%, 28%)
Nearby match
Citrine Shadow Vivid
#7C7C13 · hsl(60, 74%, 28%)
Nearby match
Canary Dusk Clear
#867E28 · hsl(55, 54%, 34%)

Accessible pairings

Archive colors that meet WCAG contrast standards when paired with this color. Use as text-on-background or background-on-text.

Contrast checker
AA5.1:1
Iris Veil Faint
#F9F9FA
AA5.1:1
Iris Veil Muted
#F9F9FB
AA5.1:1
Iris Veil Dust
#F9F9FB
AA5.1:1
Iris Veil Soft
#F8F8FC
AA5:1
Iris Veil Clear
#F7F7FD
AA5:1
Iris Veil Vivid
#F6F6FE

Color Vision Simulation

How this color appears with different color vision deficiencies.

Full simulator
Deuteranopia
#6E6E44
Protanopia
#6E6E3F
Tritanopia
#6E4E51
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Saffron Ink Faint#272520 · hsl(45, 10%, 14%)Saffron Nocturne Faint#38362E · hsl(45, 10%, 20%)Saffron Shadow Faint#4F4B40 · hsl(45, 10%, 28%)Saffron Dusk Faint#5F5B4E · hsl(45, 10%, 34%)Saffron Velvet Faint#767060 · hsl(45, 10%, 42%)Saffron Core Faint#87816E · hsl(45, 10%, 48%)Saffron Radiant Faint#95907E · hsl(45, 10%, 54%)Saffron Tone Faint#A39E8F · hsl(45, 10%, 60%)