colors
Back to gallery

Acid Aquamarine

#28f9dd
Notes

Acid Aquamarine (#28F9DD) is a true teal with a neon character. It sits at the high-saturation edge of its family. Use it sparingly, as signage, accent, or highlight against darker surfaces. Its HSL profile (172°, 95%, 57%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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
#28f9dd
RGB
rgb(40, 249, 221)
HSL
hsl(172, 95%, 57%)
HWB
hwb(172 16% 2%)
OKLCH
oklch(88.3% 0.155 180.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4680 0.9624 0.8689)
HSV
hsv(172, 84%, 98%)
LAB
lab(88.65% -53.46 -0.08)
LCH
lch(88.65% 53.46 180.09)
CMYK
cmyk(84%, 0%, 11%, 2%)

Etymology

Acid
adjective

Latin acidus, sour — sharing root with English acrid and acerbic. As a color modifier, acid implies a saturated-and-citric-and-zingy quality, the bright color of lemon-and-lime citrus-fruit-flesh and acid-yellow fluorescent-pigment surfaces. Sits at the bright-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to acidic and electric in usage.

Aquamarine
noun

An iron-tinged variety of beryl — the gemstone mined from pegmatite veins in Brazil, Madagascar, and the Pakistani Karakoram. Named for the Latin aqua marina, seawater. The color refers to a faceted Santa Maria aquamarine: a clean, slightly green-shifted blue with the gem's high refractive brilliance. Lighter than sapphire, deeper than seafoam, with the gem-trade specificity of a stone graded primarily for color depth.

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.

#28f9dd
Original
#eeeadc
Protanopia
#d4d7df
Deuteranopia
#00fef0
Tritanopia
#cbcbcb
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
1.34:1
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
15.68:1

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
##28F9DD
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4680 0.9624 0.8689)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.155

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.

Related Colors

Canvas