colors
Back to gallery

Workmanlike Celtic Teal

#05b59c
Notes

Workmanlike Celtic Teal (#05B59C) is a true teal with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (171°, 95%, 36%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#05b59c
RGB
rgb(5, 181, 156)
HSL
hsl(171, 95%, 36%)
HWB
hwb(171 2% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.2% 0.127 178.1)
HSV
hsv(171, 97%, 71%)
LAB
lab(66.12% -44.27 1.89)
LCH
lch(66.12% 44.31 177.56)
CMYK
cmyk(97%, 0%, 14%, 29%)

Etymology

Workmanlike
adjective

Old English weorcmann, workman — adjectival suffix -like. As a color modifier, workmanlike implies a clear-and-skilled-and-honest quality where the hue carries the visual register of journeyman-craftsman careful-and-competent hand-built craft. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to functional and practical in usage.

Celtic
modifier

Latin Celticus, of-the-Celts. As a color modifier, celtic implies a knotwork-and-La-Tène quality, the visual register of Irish-and-Welsh-and-Scottish Celtic-knotwork hand-carved bronze-and-stone metalwork-and-illuminated-manuscript surfaces under Celtic-Irish-Welsh-Scottish illuminated-manuscript-tradition light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to norse and welsh in usage.

Teal
noun

Anas crecca, the small dabbling duck whose male in breeding plumage sports a chestnut head crossed by a glossy green-blue stripe. The color refers to that stripe — the iridescent panel just behind the eye: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical depth of structural color rather than pigment. Cooler than cypress, warmer than cerulean, with the ornithological specificity of a color named for one feather of one bird.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

Click any swatch to explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#05b59c
Original
#ada99b
Protanopia
#9a9b9e
Deuteranopia
#00b8ad
Tritanopia
#8e8e8e
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon White
2.59:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
8.10:1

Related Colors

Canvas