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Orderly Friar Teal

#21b8a7
Notes

Orderly Friar Teal (#21B8A7) 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 (173°, 70%, 43%) 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.

HEX
#21b8a7
RGB
rgb(33, 184, 167)
HSL
hsl(173, 70%, 43%)
HWB
hwb(173 13% 28%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.6% 0.120 182.9)
HSV
hsv(173, 82%, 72%)
LAB
lab(67.57% -40.97 -2.04)
LCH
lch(67.57% 41.02 182.85)
CMYK
cmyk(82%, 0%, 9%, 28%)

Etymology

Orderly
adjective

Latin ōrdō, order — adjectival suffix -ly. As a color modifier, orderly implies a clear-and-arranged-and-organized quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-ordered-and-classified placement. Sits at the crisp-and-orderly end of the grid, parallel to methodical and organized in usage.

Friar
modifier

Old French frere, brother. As a color modifier, friar implies a Franciscan-and-Dominican-mendicant quality, the visual register of Franciscan-and-Dominican-Friar hand-spun robe-and-rope-belt-and-sandal Franciscan-and-Dominican-mendicant-and-preaching surfaces under Franciscan-and-Dominican mendicant-Friar hand-spun-robe-and-sandal preaching-tour light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to monk and nun 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.

#21b8a7
Original
#afada6
Protanopia
#9b9fa9
Deuteranopia
#00bcb3
Tritanopia
#979797
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
2.48:1
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
8.48:1

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