Bright Yellow Color Codes

Bright Yellow is a light, vivid orange with the hex code #FFAA1D, RGB values of 255, 170, 29 and an HSL value of hsl(37, 100%, 56%).

HEX	#FFAA1D
RGB	255, 170, 29
HSL	hsl(37, 100%, 56%)
HSV	37°, 89%, 100%
CMYK	0%, 33%, 89%, 0%
LAB	76.13, 21.65, 75.46
CIELCHuv	76.13, 101.63, 46.31°

Nearest Pantone: PMS 137 C ΔE 3.1 · approximate
Nearest CSS name: orange ΔE 4.3

Source Wikipedia, List of colors (cites Crayola)

Bright Yellow Color Hex Code

The Bright Yellow color hex code is #FFAA1D. Those six digits are three pairs, FF for red, AA for green and 1D for blue, which is the same triplet a browser reads from the CSS value below.

#FFAA1D

Bright Yellow Color RGB Code

The Bright Yellow RGB code is rgb(255, 170, 29). Red carries the most light at 255 of 255, which is what puts this color where it sits on the wheel.

rgb(255, 170, 29)

Bright Yellow Color HSV Code

The Bright Yellow HSV code is 37°, 89%, 100%. Read it as a hue of 37 degrees, 89% saturation and 100% value, which is the form most color pickers use because moving one number changes one thing.

37°, 89%, 100%

Bright Yellow Color CIELChuv Code

The Bright Yellow CIELCHuv code is 76.13, 101.63, 46.31°. Unlike hex or RGB this one is perceptual: lightness 76 means light to the eye rather than to the screen, and chroma 102 is how far it sits from grey.

76.13, 101.63, 46.31°

Tonal scale

What are Bright Yellow Color Palettes?

A shade mixes toward black, a tint toward white, a tone toward grey. Every step keeps the hue and is copy-ready.

Shades, toward black

Tints, toward white

Tones, toward grey

Open in the shades & tints generator →

Palettes

What are Bright Yellow Color Palette Codes?

Each of these is a hue rotation from #FFAA1D. They are generated, not curated, so they are exact.

Complementary

Directly opposite sits #1D72FF, a mid-tone, vivid azure blue. No other pairing separates two hues further, so this is the one to reach for when a single element has to win attention. Both are saturated, so give the complement much less area than the base or the two will fight.

Analogous

#FF391D and #E3FF1D sit 30 degrees either side. All three share most of their hue, so the set reads as one family instead of three separate decisions. Good for backgrounds and for state variations that should not announce themselves.

Triadic

#1DFFAA and #AA1DFF complete an even 120 degree split. Three fully independent hues, so one has to lead: keep this base dominant and let the other two appear in small quantities.

Split-complementary

Instead of the direct complement, this takes the two hues either side of it: #1DE3FF and #391DFF. Almost the same contrast, without the edge shimmer a true complementary pair produces at high saturation.

Tetradic

Two complementary pairs forming a rectangle: this base with #1D72FF, and #1DFF39 with #FF1DE3. The richest of the five and the hardest to balance, so treat this base as the lead and hold the other three well back.

See these on the color wheel →

Accessibility

Measured against white and against black, with a separate verdict for each element type. Small text, large text and UI components have different thresholds, so one pass or fail for the whole color would be wrong roughly a third of the time.

White background

1.91:1

1.91

contrast ratio on white background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Fails	Fails
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Fails	Fails
UI component needs 3:1	Fails	n/a

Black background

11.02:1

11.02

contrast ratio on black background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Passes	Passes
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Passes	Passes
UI component needs 3:1	Passes	n/a

At 1.91:1 against white, Bright Yellow is a fill color rather than a text color. Use it for surfaces, borders and large display type, and set the copy in ink. Text placed on it should be black, which gives 11.02:1. It is a highly saturated color, so it will dominate anything it sits beside. Give it space rather than surrounding it with other strong colors.

Check Bright Yellow against another color →

Color vision

How Bright Yellow looks with color blindness

Around 300 million people see color differently from the way it is specified. Each card shows the actual color beside how it appears, and how common that form of vision is.

Protanopia

About 1% of men

actual

#DFDF5C

Bright Yellow changes substantially here. ΔE 41.5

No working red cones. Reds darken sharply and drift toward the same muddy olive as green.

Deuteranopia

About 1% of men

actual

#E4EA65

Bright Yellow changes substantially here. ΔE 45.0

No working green cones. With the milder deuteranomaly at nearer 6% of men, this is by far the most common form, and the one worth designing around.

Tritanopia

About 1 in 10,000

actual

#FC767B

Bright Yellow changes substantially here. ΔE 61.9

No working blue cones. Blues shift toward green and yellows toward pink. Rare, and unlike the others it is not sex-linked, so it affects men and women equally.

Achromatopsia

About 1 in 30,000

actual

#BCBCBC

Bright Yellow changes substantially here. ΔE 78.5

No color vision at all. Also a fair proxy for how the color survives a greyscale print or a failing screen.

To a deuteranope, the most common form, Bright Yellow reads as #E4EA65. That is a shift of ΔE 45.0, so it is a different color to roughly one man in sixteen. It sits in the red end of the spectrum, which is exactly where red-green deficiency does its damage. Never pair it with a green of similar lightness to signal a difference in meaning: to a large minority the two become one color. The widest shift is under tritanopia, at ΔE 61.9. The rule this leads to needs no simulator: never let color be the only thing carrying a message. Add a label, an icon, or a clear difference in lightness, and the problem disappears for everyone.

Simulate a whole palette →

Snippets

Using Bright Yellow in code

:root {
  --bright-yellow: #FFAA1D;
}

.example {
  color: var(--bright-yellow);
}

// tailwind.config.js
theme: {
  extend: {
    colors: {
      'bright-yellow': '#FFAA1D',
    },
  },
}

// SwiftUI takes 0–1 components, not 0–255.
let brightYellow = Color(
    red: 1.000,
    green: 0.667,
    blue: 0.114
)

<!-- res/values/colors.xml -->
<color name="bright_yellow">#FFAA1D</color>

// Flutter wants ARGB: FF for full opacity, then the hex.
const brightYellow = Color(0xFFFFAA1D);

Meaning

What is the Meaning of Bright Yellow Color?

Bright Yellow reads as caution and attention. It is saturated enough to dominate anything it sits beside, and at 100% saturation with a perceptual lightness of 76 it behaves as a warm color, which is the practical reason it turns up where it does.

What are Other Names of Bright Yellow Color?

The closest CSS keyword is Orange (#FFA500), though it is not a match: Delta-E 4.3 means the difference is visible side by side. For print the nearest Pantone is PMS 137 C at #FCA311. The name Bright Yellow is the one carried by Wikipedia's list of colors.

How is Bright Yellow Color Made?

On a screen Bright Yellow is made by additive light: 255 red, 170 green and 29 blue out of 255, with red leading and 29 as the floor. In print it is subtractive instead, mixed as 0%, 33%, 89%, 0%. Starting from the pure hue at 37 degrees, Bright Yellow is close to the pure hue, with little white or black in it.