Ancient Scroll

#f0e4d1

A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is very light — it works as a page background, not as text.

Hex

#f0e4d1

RGB

240, 228, 209

OKLCh

92.3% 0.029 79.5°

CIELAB (D50)

91.2, 1.9, 10.8

What is true of this colour, and of no other

  • 87 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it — this part of the space is crowded, and the names here are finer distinctions than most people make.
  • It uses 41% of the chroma sRGB can show at this lightness and hue.
  • As text on white it measures APCA Lc 12.7; on black, Lc -91.2. 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.
  • protanopia and deuteranopia and tritanopia shift it by ΔE00 6.0 and 6.3 and 14.7 — no red cone.

Text on this colour

White text

1.26:1 — fails AA

Black text

16.72:1 — passes AA

Black text is the better of the two at16.72:1. That is enough for body text.

As text on white, it needs to change

#807564 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.

Try it against your own background

The same colour, with one cone missing

As you see it

#f0e4d1

protanopia

#e5e5d1 · ΔE00 6.0

deuteranopia

#e8e8d1 · ΔE00 6.3

tritanopia

#eaeaa0 · ΔE00 14.7

Run a whole palette through all three

The twelve nearest named colours

Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isHectorite at ΔE00 0.393: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.

  • HectoriteΔE00 0.393 · #f0e4d2
  • Tulip WhiteΔE00 0.434 · #f1e5d1
  • Original WhiteΔE00 0.536 · #f0e5d3
  • Buckwheat FlourΔE00 0.615 · #efe2cf
  • Vanilla PasteΔE00 0.739 · #f3e7d3
  • Glazed PearsΔE00 0.814 · #efe3d2
  • Dairy BelleΔE00 0.838 · #f4e7d4
  • Delicate LaceΔE00 0.871 · #f3e6d4
  • Asian FusionΔE00 0.879 · #ece0cd
  • Artist’s CanvasΔE00 0.908 · #eee4d2
  • Tawny DaylilyΔE00 0.966 · #eee4d1
  • Coconut Cream PieΔE00 1.002 · #f0e2cf

12 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.