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Useful Gloom Turquoise

#28c0d1
Notes

Useful Gloom Turquoise (#28C0D1) is a true cyan with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (186°, 68%, 49%) 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
#28c0d1
RGB
rgb(40, 192, 209)
HSL
hsl(186, 68%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(186 16% 18%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.1% 0.120 206.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3672 0.7421 0.8089)
HSV
hsv(186, 81%, 82%)
LAB
lab(71.38% -31.64 -19.38)
LCH
lch(71.38% 37.10 211.48)
CMYK
cmyk(81%, 8%, 0%, 18%)

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.

Gloom
modifier

Middle English gloumen, to-look-sullen. As a color modifier, gloom implies a sullen-and-darkened-and-overcast quality, the visual register of Northumbrian-moor-and-Scottish-glen-gloom hand-sullen-and-darkened-and-overcast Northumbrian-moor-and-Scottish-glen-and-Yorkshire-dale gloomed-and-darkened-and-overcast surfaces under Northumbrian-moor-and-Scottish-glen overcast-and-low-cloud heather-and-bracken-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to murk and drear in usage.

Turquoise
noun

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.

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.

#28c0d1
Original
#afb8d2
Protanopia
#98a8d1
Deuteranopia
#00c9c5
Tritanopia
#a1a1a1
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
2.20:1
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
9.55:1

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
##28C0D1
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3672 0.7421 0.8089)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.120

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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