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Effective Procyon Turquoise

#34aeb9
Notes

Effective Procyon Turquoise (#34AEB9) is a true cyan with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (185°, 56%, 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
#34aeb9
RGB
rgb(52, 174, 185)
HSL
hsl(185, 56%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(185 20% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.0% 0.105 203.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3548 0.6729 0.7173)
HSV
hsv(185, 72%, 73%)
LAB
lab(65.36% -29.03 -15.27)
LCH
lch(65.36% 32.80 207.74)
CMYK
cmyk(72%, 6%, 0%, 27%)

Etymology

Effective
adjective

Latin effectīvus, productive — adjectival suffix -ive. As a color modifier, effective implies a clear-and-purpose-achieving quality where the hue carries the visual register of successful-task-completion design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and useful in usage.

Procyon
modifier

Greek προκύων, before-the-dog. As a color modifier, procyon implies a Canis-Minor-and-bright-foretaste-of-Sirius quality, the visual register of Canis-Minor-Procyon-and-Winter-Triangle hand-Canis-Minor-and-bright-foretaste-of-Sirius Canis-Minor-Procyon-and-Winter-Triangle-and-Bortle-1-sky procyon-and-Canis-Minor-and-bright-foretaste surfaces under Canis-Minor-Procyon-and-Winter-Triangle-and-Bortle-1-sky January-and-February-winter-zenith winter-stellar-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to rigel and altair 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.

#34aeb9
Original
#a0a7ba
Protanopia
#8d99b9
Deuteranopia
#00b5b1
Tritanopia
#959595
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
2.66:1
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
7.90:1

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
##34AEB9
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3548 0.6729 0.7173)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.105

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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