Gold#FFC500, a warm vivid gold
Gold in RGB, HSL, OKLCH & more
Ready to ship: every line pastes straight into your codebase, and the whole file copies at once.
ART is Rhapsody's perceptual model. How ART works
Why is it called Gold?
Gold's meaning, origin, and pronunciation, with sources.
Anchor: A15 · one of the 72 anchor hues of ART
Origin: Native English, one of the wheel's rare unborrowed words
Meaning: The metal; at root, "to shine, to be yellow"
gohld · /ɡoʊld/
Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-, "to shine, to be yellow" → Proto-Germanic *gulþą → Old English gold → English gold.
It is one of the few names on this wheel English never had to borrow, and its family tree is worth pausing over. The same root produced yellow, glow, gall and Slavic zoloto. Gold and yellow are literally one word that split in two. So, six thousand years down another branch, is Sanskrit hari, whose descendant haldi sits two anchors away.
Notice the pattern. The only anchors English didn't have to borrow are the ancient warm ones: gold, grass, the sun-words. That is exactly where researchers find color vocabulary at its oldest and densest. The cool side of this wheel is all imports. The warm side is home.
etymonline s.v. gold, yellow; Watkins/AHD (PIE root). Etymological dictionaries + scholarly sources. Audio: Association Shtooka, Judith Franck, CC BY 3.0 us.
Shades of Gold, lighter and darker
For hover states, washed backgrounds, and dark surfaces that still read as #FFC500. 13 steps, spaced evenly by eye, with the color itself sitting at its natural depth, gold-300.
Tints (light surfaces; dark text passes on every one)
Midtones (the color at full strength, for brand & accent work)
Shades (dark surfaces; light text passes on every one)
Most tools mix. Rhapsody measures.
Paste any color. The whole system comes back, contrast-checked before you see it.
The window on the right was generated from #FFC500, like this whole page.
Is Gold accessible? Contrast with white & black
Strong contrast makes your work readable by everyone, and meets the WCAG standard accessibility law points at. AA is the floor; AAA is the tier worth aiming for in body text. Black text on #FFC500 clears WCAG AAA. Every strip below is one surface, and the marks are the steps that reach AAA on it.
Rows are text, columns are background · 68 of 210 pairings reach WCAG 2.2 AAA, shown here.
Ship the audit, not screenshots.
Run #FFC500 against the colors you actually ship, every pairing and any target, and export it: exact ratios, the AA tier, APCA, in one file.
The audit on the right was calibrated from #FFC500, like this whole page.
Gold in CMYK: one value for files, one per press
Presses move this color a little, by less than a print run varies anyway, so a printer would call it a match. The pairs below show where each standard lands.
In CMYK, #FFC500 is . That is the value design tools and file formats use when no press is involved.
On press (what each standard prints)
shifts ΔE00 7.6, 3.1× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 4.3, 1.7× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 0.7, under the 2.5 a press run varies by
shifts ΔE00 0.0, under the 2.5 a press run varies by
shifts ΔE00 0.7, under the 2.5 a press run varies by
shifts ΔE00 0.7, under the 2.5 a press run varies by
shifts ΔE00 0.7, under the 2.5 a press run varies by
Press values computed through the ICC characterization data each standard proofs against. Each CMYK above is the closest that standard can get, near enough that a press run's own variation is the larger difference.
No surprises at the printer.
Run any color through the major press standards: FOGRA51, GRACoL, Japan Color, FOGRA39. It's coming soon. Create a free account and you'll get a note the moment it's live.
The strip shows this page's tints and shades on screen, then through a standard GRACoL 2013 conversion.
Colors similar to Gold
The metal; at root, "to shine, to be yellow"
Here are other colors similar to Gold along with accessible text pairings and whether or not they're print-safe. Explore The Golds
| Sunflower | Sunflower | #FFC512 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Golden Yellow | Golden Yellow | #FEC615 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Supernova | Supernova | #FFC901 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Marigold | Marigold | #FCC006 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Lightning Yellow | Lightning Yellow | #FCC01E | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Sunglow | Sunglow | #FFCC33 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Golden | Golden | #F5BF03 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Golden Rod | Golden Rod | #F9BC08 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Mustard | Mustard | #FFD100 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Corn | Corn | #E7BF05 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| School Bus Yellow | School Bus Yellow | #FFD800 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Ripe Lemon | Ripe Lemon | #F4D81C | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Candlelight | Candlelight | #FCD917 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Sunflower Yellow | Sunflower Yellow | #FFDA03 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Haldi | Haldi | #FFDD00 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Sun Yellow | Sun Yellow | #FFDF22 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Dandelion | Dandelion | #FEDF08 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
Colors that go with Gold
The complementary color, straight across the wheel, is a cool vivid blue #2151CE. Rhapsody's pick is the split complement, just to one side of it, a livelier pair.
The accent is for the moments that need attention, the harmony for the ones that need calm; the neutral carries the text and surfaces in between.
Take Gold with you
The work on this page doesn't stay here. Save a card and the color arrives in your file, your deck or your board already decided.
Your system is already built.
Rhapsody built it before you even asked: the scale, the neutrals, the utilities, every pairing calibrated.
This page's whole theme is built from one color. Palette does the same for yours: every step calibrated, every pairing checked, press included.
Every color on this page was calibrated, not mixed.
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