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Etched Bard Teal

#1b8181
Notes

Etched Bard Teal (#1B8181) 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 (180°, 65%, 31%) 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
#1b8181
RGB
rgb(27, 129, 129)
HSL
hsl(180, 65%, 31%)
HWB
hwb(180 11% 49%)
OKLCH
oklch(54.9% 0.087 194.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2427 0.4984 0.5021)
HSV
hsv(180, 79%, 51%)
LAB
lab(48.90% -27.11 -8.06)
LCH
lch(48.90% 28.28 196.56)
CMYK
cmyk(79%, 0%, 0%, 49%)

Etymology

Etched
adjective

German ätzen, to etch — past-participle of etch. As a color modifier, etched implies a clear-and-precisely-incised quality, the crisp color of Rembrandt-and-Dürer hand-pulled etching-print fine-line incised-image. Sits at the crisp-and-incised end of the grid, parallel to engraved and inscribed in usage.

Bard
modifier

Welsh bardd, poet. As a color modifier, bard implies a Welsh-and-Irish-poet-and-storyteller quality, the visual register of Welsh-Eisteddfod-and-Irish-Bardic hand-spoken poet-and-harp-and-eisteddfod oral-tradition Celtic-bardic surfaces under Welsh-Eisteddfod-and-Irish-Bardic hand-spoken-poet-and-harp oral-tradition Celtic-bardic gathering light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to druid and celtic 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.

#1b8181
Original
#787a81
Protanopia
#6a7082
Deuteranopia
#008581
Tritanopia
#6b6b6b
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
4.66:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
4.50:1

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
##1B8181
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2427 0.4984 0.5021)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.087

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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