Frank Wintergreen
Frank Wintergreen (#1F9B90) is a true 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 (175°, 67%, 36%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. 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.
Etymology
From the Old French franc, free, sincere — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as direct and unhedged. Frank red, frank brown: moderate-to-high saturation combined with optical directness. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside direct and honest.
Gaultheria procumbens, the low-growing evergreen of North American forest floors whose leaves and red berries flavor candy and toothpaste with methyl salicylate. The color refers to fresh wintergreen leaves on the forest floor: a saturated, slightly muted green with the matte finish of small leathery foliage. Cooler than mint, warmer than spruce, with the cold-air association of a plant that stays green through snow.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.