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Pragmatic Pistache

#35ba9c
Notes

Pragmatic Pistache (#35BA9C) is a true teal 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 (166°, 56%, 47%) 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
#35ba9c
RGB
rgb(53, 186, 156)
HSL
hsl(166, 56%, 47%)
HWB
hwb(166 21% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.1% 0.121 174.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3757 0.7193 0.6171)
HSV
hsv(166, 72%, 73%)
LAB
lab(68.22% -42.55 5.00)
LCH
lch(68.22% 42.85 173.30)
CMYK
cmyk(72%, 0%, 16%, 27%)

Etymology

Pragmatic
adjective

Greek pragmatikós, of business / practical — adjectival suffix -ic. As a color modifier, pragmatic implies a clear-and-purpose-fit-and-no-nonsense quality where the hue carries the visual register of straightforward-utilitarian-and-functional decision-making. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and functional in usage.

Pistache
noun

The French name for the pistachio nut — borrowed into English via the eighteenth-century pastry trade and persisting as a color name distinct from the food. Pistache refers to the soft, pale yellow-green of a French pistachio macaron rather than the deeper green of the raw nut: lighter than pistachio, cooler than celery, with the French-pâtisserie weight of a word more often seen on a Ladurée box than a plant catalog.

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.

#35ba9c
Original
#b4ae9b
Protanopia
#a2a19e
Deuteranopia
#00bcb1
Tritanopia
#9c9c9c
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
2.43:1
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
8.65:1

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
##35BA9C
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3757 0.7193 0.6171)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.121

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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