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Tracer Aquamarine

#17e3ae
Notes

Tracer Aquamarine (#17E3AE) is a true teal with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (164°, 82%, 49%) 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
#17e3ae
RGB
rgb(23, 227, 174)
HSL
hsl(164, 82%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(164 9% 11%)
OKLCH
oklch(81.5% 0.162 167.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4147 0.8771 0.6952)
HSV
hsv(164, 90%, 89%)
LAB
lab(80.83% -57.45 13.28)
LCH
lch(80.83% 58.96 166.98)
CMYK
cmyk(90%, 0%, 23%, 11%)

Etymology

Tracer
adjective

Old French tracier, to trace — sharing root with English trace and track. As a color modifier, tracer implies a saturated-and-streak-of-light quality, the bright color of military-tracer-round and long-exposure-photography light-trail visual streak. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to flashing and streaking in usage.

Aquamarine
noun

An iron-tinged variety of beryl — the gemstone mined from pegmatite veins in Brazil, Madagascar, and the Pakistani Karakoram. Named for the Latin aqua marina, seawater. The color refers to a faceted Santa Maria aquamarine: a clean, slightly green-shifted blue with the gem's high refractive brilliance. Lighter than sapphire, deeper than seafoam, with the gem-trade specificity of a stone graded primarily for color depth.

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.

#17e3ae
Original
#ddd2ab
Protanopia
#c6c2b2
Deuteranopia
#00e4d4
Tritanopia
#b4b4b4
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
1.66:1
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
12.64:1

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
##17E3AE
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4147 0.8771 0.6952)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.162

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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