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Steady Saturn Verdigris

#3c8580
Notes

Steady Saturn Verdigris (#3C8580) 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°, 38%, 38%) 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
#3c8580
RGB
rgb(60, 133, 128)
HSL
hsl(176, 38%, 38%)
HWB
hwb(176 24% 48%)
OKLCH
oklch(56.9% 0.073 189.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3110 0.5151 0.5003)
HSV
hsv(176, 55%, 52%)
LAB
lab(51.03% -23.94 -4.23)
LCH
lch(51.03% 24.31 190.01)
CMYK
cmyk(55%, 0%, 4%, 48%)

Etymology

Steady
adjective

Old English stede, place, position — drifted to mean firm and unmoving. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as reliable rather than dramatic. Steady gray, steady green: moderate saturation combined with optical calmness. Sits in the crisp-bucket center alongside settled.

Saturn
modifier

Latin Saturnus, Roman-god-of-time-and-sixth-planet. As a color modifier, saturn implies a Roman-god-of-time-and-ringed-sixth-planet quality, the visual register of Roman-Saturn-and-Cassini-rings hand-Roman-god-of-time-and-ringed-sixth-planet Roman-Saturn-and-Cassini-rings-and-Saturnalia saturn-and-Roman-god-of-time-and-ringed-planet surfaces under Roman-Saturn-and-Cassini-rings-and-Saturnalia Saturnalia-festival-and-ringed-gas-giant ringed-planet-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to jupiter and neptune 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.

#3c8580
Original
#7e7f80
Protanopia
#727681
Deuteranopia
#008883
Tritanopia
#757575
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
4.32:1
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
4.86:1

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
##3C8580
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3110 0.5151 0.5003)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.073

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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