Gold is a yellow with a little orange in it: on a screen it has more red light than green. A flat swatch cannot show the shine of real gold, so everything here is the plain color.
In our paint model the work is mostly done by yellow itself. The rest of the mix only nudges it.
CSS gold is a yellow that leans a little toward orange. Metallic gold, with its shine, cannot be shown by a flat swatch; this page treats gold as a flat color.
In paint
The five closest two-paint mixes in our model are all mostly yellow with a small share of one other paint. Our yellow on its own is already nearer to gold than any equal-part mix of two paints, so equal parts are a poor way to reach it. Yellow with orange in equal parts lands on an orange-yellow instead of gold.
Closest two-paint mixes
- += 85% Yellow + 15% Orange #F9D41D · ΔE 1.3 from gold
- += 90% Yellow + 10% White #F9D71D · ΔE 1.6 from gold
- += 90% Yellow + 10% Violet #F5D420 · ΔE 2.1 from gold
- += 90% Yellow + 10% Black #F1D51F · ΔE 3.1 from gold
- += 90% Yellow + 10% Magenta #FACC24 · ΔE 3.4 from gold
Equal parts
- += Yellow + Orange #F7AD20 · ΔE 14.0 from gold
- += Yellow + White #F7E54B · ΔE 6.4 from gold
- += Yellow + Violet #B68C42 · ΔE 23.2 from gold
ΔE is the CIEDE2000 color difference between the mix and gold. Zero means the same color; the smaller the number, the closer the mix.
In light
A screen shows gold with the red lamp fully on, the green lamp clearly lower, and the blue lamp off. Yellow is the same recipe with the green lamp raised to match the red.
The three lamps at these levels give #FFD700. Levels are the amount of light each lamp gives out, which is not the same scale as the 0–255 numbers in a color code; the method page shows the conversion.
Wheel pairings
The two wheels disagree here. The painter's wheel keeps the same saturation and lightness setting, so it turns gold into a deep blue-violet that is much darker than gold. The OKLCH wheel keeps perceived lightness, so its opposite is a pale blue about as light as gold.
| Rule | Painter's wheel | OKLCH wheel |
|---|---|---|
| Complementary +180° | #7500FF 4.68:1 | #CBD6FF 1.03:1 |
| Analogous -30° +30° | #FF9700 1.55:1#D0FF00 1.20:1 | #FFCB8A 1.06:1#BEEE59 1.04:1 |
| Triadic +120° +240° | #00A0FF 2.00:1#FF006B 2.74:1 | #68EEFF 1.02:1#FFBBF9 1.09:1 |
| Split-complementary +150° +210° | #2000FF 5.98:1#E900FF 2.53:1 | #ADE0FF 1.01:1#E9CAFF 1.04:1 |
Gold mixed with each paint
Start from gold (#FFD700) and add one of our ten stand-in paints. Shares are by amount, in our paint model.
| Add | 75% gold + 25% | 50% gold + 50% | 25% gold + 75% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | #FFA420 | #F25D28 | #DA2F2A |
| Yellow | #FED703 | #FBD710 | #F9D71A |
| Blue | #BDCB24 | #689F3D | #1D6550 |
| Orange | #FDCD09 | #F9AD16 | #F4931C |
| Green | #BAD21C | #6DB72E | #3A923A |
| Violet | #E5C322 | #B68D3A | #77514A |
| Magenta | #FDA52A | #EB613A | #CE344E |
| Cyan | #93D523 | #41BF3D | #00A66A |
| White | #FDDA12 | #F9E53F | #F4F389 |
| Black | #D8CA1C | #9A9A2F | #4D502E |
Named golds in CSS
| CSS name | Swatch | Code | ΔE from this page's gold |
|---|---|---|---|
| gold | #FFD700 | 0.0 | |
| goldenrod | #DAA520 | 13.7 | |
| darkgoldenrod | #B8860B | 22.8 |
Paint results come from a pigment model and our ten stand-in paints, not from real tubes, which vary by brand and pigment. Try any pair in the color mixer, or read how each swatch is worked out.