colors
Back to gallery

Organized Pier Verdigris

#38a49d
Notes

Organized Pier Verdigris (#38A49D) 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 (176°, 49%, 43%) 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
#38a49d
RGB
rgb(56, 164, 157)
HSL
hsl(176, 49%, 43%)
HWB
hwb(176 22% 36%)
OKLCH
oklch(65.6% 0.097 188.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3465 0.6344 0.6135)
HSV
hsv(176, 66%, 64%)
LAB
lab(61.50% -31.84 -5.36)
LCH
lch(61.50% 32.29 189.56)
CMYK
cmyk(66%, 0%, 4%, 36%)

Etymology

Organized
adjective

Greek órganon, instrument / tool — past-participle of organize. As a color modifier, organized implies a clear-and-coordinated-and-systematic quality where the hue carries the visual register of well-coordinated-and-classified arrangement. Sits at the crisp-and-orderly end of the grid, parallel to orderly and methodical in usage.

Pier
modifier

Old French piere, stone / pier. As a color modifier, pier implies a sea-extending-walkway quality, the visual register of Brighton-and-Blackpool Victorian-period iron-and-wooden sea-pier pleasure-and-amusement promenade surfaces under bright English-seaside Victorian-pier light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to jetty and wharf 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.

#38a49d
Original
#9b9b9d
Protanopia
#8b8f9e
Deuteranopia
#00a8a2
Tritanopia
#8d8d8d
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).
AA Largeon White
3.01:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
6.97:1

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
##38A49D
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3465 0.6344 0.6135)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.097

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