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Luminous Creek

#28c59b
Notes

Luminous Creek (#28C59B) 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 (164°, 66%, 46%) 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
#28c59b
RGB
rgb(40, 197, 155)
HSL
hsl(164, 66%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(164 16% 23%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.6% 0.139 169.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3759 0.7614 0.6174)
HSV
hsv(164, 80%, 77%)
LAB
lab(71.38% -48.97 10.04)
LCH
lch(71.38% 49.98 168.41)
CMYK
cmyk(80%, 0%, 21%, 23%)

Etymology

Luminous
adjective

Latin lūminōsus, full of light — adjectival suffix -ous, derived from lūmen (light). As a color modifier, luminous implies a saturated-and-light-emitting quality where the hue carries internal-glow visual register. Sits at the bright-and-saturated end of the grid, parallel to radiant and resplendent in usage.

Creek
noun

A small flowing waterway — slightly larger than a brook in American usage, slightly smaller in British. Creek color refers to a typical American Appalachian creek in summer: a soft, slightly cool deep blue-green with the optical clarity of slow-flowing forest stream.

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.

#28c59b
Original
#bfb799
Protanopia
#aca99e
Deuteranopia
#00c6b9
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
##28C59B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3759 0.7614 0.6174)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.139

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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