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Pellucid Icicle Teal

#157b7d
Notes

Pellucid Icicle Teal (#157B7D) is a deep cyan 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 (181°, 71%, 29%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. 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
#157b7d
RGB
rgb(21, 123, 125)
HSL
hsl(181, 71%, 29%)
HWB
hwb(181 8% 51%)
OKLCH
oklch(53.1% 0.086 197.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2247 0.4751 0.4859)
HSV
hsv(181, 83%, 49%)
LAB
lab(46.72% -25.99 -8.98)
LCH
lch(46.72% 27.50 199.07)
CMYK
cmyk(83%, 2%, 0%, 51%)

Etymology

Pellucid
adjective

Latin pellūcidus, transparent — derived from per-lūcēre (to shine through). As a color modifier, pellucid implies a clear-and-translucent quality where the hue reads with optical clarity and minimal turbidity. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to lucid and translucent in usage.

Icicle
modifier

Old English īsgicel, ice-and-icicle. As a color modifier, icicle implies a hanging-ice-and-eaves-frozen-drip quality, the visual register of Alpine-eaves-and-Norwegian-stave-icicle hand-hanging-ice-and-eaves-frozen-drip Alpine-eaves-and-Norwegian-stave-icicle-and-Cairngorm-ledge icicle-and-hanging-ice-and-eaves-frozen-drip surfaces under Alpine-eaves-and-Norwegian-stave-icicle-and-Cairngorm-ledge Alpine-Dolomites-and-Norwegian-stave-church frozen-drip-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to floe and berg 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.

#157b7d
Original
#72757d
Protanopia
#646a7e
Deuteranopia
#00807b
Tritanopia
#656565
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).
AAon White
5.05:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon Black
4.16:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##157B7D
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2247 0.4751 0.4859)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.086

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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