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Drafted Pillar Teal

#40baa2
Notes

Drafted Pillar Teal (#40BAA2) is a true teal 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 (168°, 49%, 49%) 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
#40baa2
RGB
rgb(64, 186, 162)
HSL
hsl(168, 49%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(168 25% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.5% 0.113 177.2)
HSV
hsv(168, 66%, 73%)
LAB
lab(68.62% -39.35 2.31)
LCH
lch(68.62% 39.42 176.64)
CMYK
cmyk(66%, 0%, 13%, 27%)

Etymology

Drafted
adjective

Old English draht, draft — past-participle of draft. As a color modifier, drafted implies a clear-and-line-and-measured quality, the crisp color of Mid-Century-Modern hand-drafted architectural-and-engineering studio-drawing precision-tool-rendered lines. Sits at the crisp-and-incised end of the grid, parallel to drawn and plotted in usage.

Pillar
modifier

Latin pīla, pillar. As a color modifier, pillar implies a vertical-load-bearing-and-monumental quality, the visual register of Roman-and-Greek-and-Egyptian-Pillar hand-cut Doric-and-Ionic-and-Corinthian-Egyptian column-and-pillar monumental-architecture surfaces under classical-pillar monumental-architecture light. Sits at the modifier-and-architecture end of the grid, parallel to column and plinth in usage.

Teal
noun

Anas crecca, the small dabbling duck whose male in breeding plumage sports a chestnut head crossed by a glossy green-blue stripe. The color refers to that stripe — the iridescent panel just behind the eye: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical depth of structural color rather than pigment. Cooler than cypress, warmer than cerulean, with the ornithological specificity of a color named for one feather of one bird.

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.

#40baa2
Original
#b3afa1
Protanopia
#a2a2a4
Deuteranopia
#00bdb3
Tritanopia
#9e9e9e
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
2.40:1
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
8.76:1

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