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Useful Goth Moss

#255d45
Notes

Useful Goth Moss (#255D45) is a deep teal with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (154°, 43%, 25%) 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 magenta. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#255d45
RGB
rgb(37, 93, 69)
HSL
hsl(154, 43%, 25%)
HWB
hwb(154 15% 64%)
OKLCH
oklch(43.4% 0.072 162.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2049 0.3598 0.2771)
HSV
hsv(154, 60%, 36%)
LAB
lab(35.30% -24.84 8.35)
LCH
lch(35.30% 26.21 161.42)
CMYK
cmyk(60%, 0%, 26%, 64%)

Etymology

Useful
adjective

Latin ūsus, use — adjectival suffix -ful. As a color modifier, useful implies a clear-and-purpose-serving quality where the hue carries the visual register of helpful-and-supporting design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and serviceable in usage.

Goth
modifier

Greek Gothi, Goths. As a color modifier, goth implies a Germanic-tribal-migration quality, the visual register of Visigothic-and-Ostrogothic-Kingdoms late-Roman-period hand-built Germanic-Migration-period kingdom-and-fortification surfaces under Visigothic-Spain-and-Ostrogothic-Italy late-Roman Migration-Period sky. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to vandal and hun in usage.

Moss
noun

Bryophyta — the nonvascular plants that colonized land 470 million years ago, before vascular plants and far before flowers. The color refers to a thick mat of Hypnum or sphagnum on a temperate forest floor: a soft, slightly yellow-shifted green with the velvet texture of millimeter-scale leaves. Dustier than fern, deeper than lichen, with the slow patience of a plant that lives by absorbing rain through its surface.

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.

#255d45
Original
#5c5644
Protanopia
#535147
Deuteranopia
#0d5d56
Tritanopia
#4f4f4f
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).
AAAon White
7.69:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon Black
2.73:1

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
##255D45
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2049 0.3598 0.2771)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.072

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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