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Surveyed Apple

#3e4e2c
Notes

Surveyed Apple (#3E4E2C) is a deep lime 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 (88°, 28%, 24%) places it in the muted band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#3e4e2c
RGB
rgb(62, 78, 44)
HSL
hsl(88, 28%, 24%)
HWB
hwb(88 17% 69%)
OKLCH
oklch(40.1% 0.057 129.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2556 0.3040 0.1873)
HSV
hsv(88, 44%, 31%)
LAB
lab(31.01% -13.23 18.10)
LCH
lch(31.01% 22.42 126.16)
CMYK
cmyk(21%, 0%, 44%, 69%)

Etymology

Surveyed
adjective

Old French surveer, to look upon — past-participle of survey. As a color modifier, surveyed implies a clear-and-measured-and-coordinated quality, the crisp color of Mason-Dixon-Line-and-Royal-Navy-Hydrographic scientific-and-cadastral land-and-sea surveying tradition. Sits at the crisp-and-mapped end of the grid, parallel to mapped and plotted in usage.

Apple
noun

Malus domestica, the temperate fruit selected from a wild ancestor in the Tian Shan mountains of Kazakhstan. The color refers to a green apple cultivar like Granny Smith or Crispin: a clean, slightly yellow-shifted green with the polished surface of waxed fruit. Brighter than sage, cooler than lime, with the bracing acidity that distinguishes a hard cooking apple from its sweet eating cousins.

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.

#3e4e2c
Original
#514a29
Protanopia
#4f492e
Deuteranopia
#3f4b46
Tritanopia
#484848
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).
AAAon White
9.01:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon Black
2.33:1

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
##3E4E2C
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2556 0.3040 0.1873)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.057

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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