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Easy Surf

#3b918e
Notes

Easy Surf (#3B918E) 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 (178°, 42%, 40%) 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
#3b918e
RGB
rgb(59, 145, 142)
HSL
hsl(178, 42%, 40%)
HWB
hwb(178 23% 43%)
OKLCH
oklch(60.4% 0.082 192.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3250 0.5613 0.5541)
HSV
hsv(178, 59%, 57%)
LAB
lab(55.21% -26.27 -6.15)
LCH
lch(55.21% 26.98 193.18)
CMYK
cmyk(59%, 0%, 2%, 43%)

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.

Surf
noun

The white water produced where waves break — bubbles of compressed air carried in shallow water and dispersing as the wave reforms. The color refers to surf retreating across wet sand: a soft, very pale blue-green with the optical brightness of bubble dispersion. Lighter than seafoam, cooler than frost, with the kinetic weight of a color that's never still — every photograph of surf is already obsolete.

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.

#3b918e
Original
#898a8e
Protanopia
#7b808f
Deuteranopia
#009590
Tritanopia
#7e7e7e
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
3.73:1
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
5.63:1

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
##3B918E
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3250 0.5613 0.5541)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.082

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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