colors
Back to gallery

Easy Hawkseye

#39bdc5
Notes

Easy Hawkseye (#39BDC5) 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 (183°, 55%, 50%) 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
#39bdc5
RGB
rgb(57, 189, 197)
HSL
hsl(183, 55%, 50%)
HWB
hwb(183 22% 23%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.2% 0.111 201.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3871 0.7310 0.7648)
HSV
hsv(183, 71%, 77%)
LAB
lab(70.38% -32.05 -14.31)
LCH
lch(70.38% 35.10 204.05)
CMYK
cmyk(71%, 4%, 0%, 23%)

Etymology

Easy
adjective

Old French aisié, comfortable, at rest — used as a color modifier since the eighteenth century for hues that read as visually undemanding. Easy beige, easy gray: moderate saturation combined with optical restfulness. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside calm and settled.

Hawkseye
noun

A blue-gray variety of tigereye quartz — colored by crocidolite asbestos inclusions that scatter light into a chatoyant band like the eye of a raptor. The color refers to a polished Hawkseye cabochon: a soft, slightly cool deep blue-gray with the optical complexity of chatoyant silicate fibers.

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.

#39bdc5
Original
#afb5c6
Protanopia
#9ba6c6
Deuteranopia
#00c4bf
Tritanopia
#a2a2a2
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
2.27:1
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
9.26:1

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
##39BDC5
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3871 0.7310 0.7648)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.111

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