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Reliable Catnip Verdigris

#32a5a4
Notes

Reliable Catnip Verdigris (#32A5A4) is a true cyan 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 (179°, 53%, 42%) 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
#32a5a4
RGB
rgb(50, 165, 164)
HSL
hsl(179, 53%, 42%)
HWB
hwb(179 20% 35%)
OKLCH
oklch(66.0% 0.099 194.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3372 0.6381 0.6389)
HSV
hsv(179, 70%, 65%)
LAB
lab(61.88% -31.20 -8.75)
LCH
lch(61.88% 32.41 195.66)
CMYK
cmyk(70%, 0%, 1%, 35%)

Etymology

Reliable
adjective

Latin re-ligāre, to bind back — adjectival suffix -able. As a color modifier, reliable implies a clear-and-trustworthy-and-consistent quality where the hue carries the visual register of dependable-and-consistent design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to dependable and trustworthy in usage.

Catnip
modifier

Old English catte-nepe, cat-mint-or-catnip. As a color modifier, catnip implies a cat-mint-and-grey-green-cottage-herb quality, the visual register of English-cottage-and-Quaker-herb-garden-catnip hand-cat-mint-and-grey-green-cottage-herb English-cottage-and-Quaker-herb-garden-catnip-and-Tudor-still-room catnip-and-cat-mint surfaces under English-cottage-and-Quaker-herb-garden-catnip-and-Tudor-still-room Sussex-cottage-and-New-England-Quaker-garden cottage-herb-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to hyssop and lovage in usage.

Verdigris
noun

The basic copper carbonate that forms on weathered copper and bronze — the pigment scraped from oxidized metal and used in Renaissance painting before being supplanted by more stable greens. The color refers to a thick verdigris on aged copper roofing or the Statue of Liberty's surface: a soft, slightly muted blue-green with the powdery finish of mineral oxide. Cooler than patina, warmer than seafoam, with the archaeological weight of a mineral made by time.

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.

#32a5a4
Original
#9a9da4
Protanopia
#8990a5
Deuteranopia
#00aaa4
Tritanopia
#8c8c8c
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
2.98:1
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
7.05:1

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
##32A5A4
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3372 0.6381 0.6389)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.099

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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