colors
Back to gallery

Plumb Roller

#42a38b
Notes

Plumb Roller (#42A38B) 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 (165°, 42%, 45%) 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
#42a38b
RGB
rgb(66, 163, 139)
HSL
hsl(165, 42%, 45%)
HWB
hwb(165 26% 36%)
OKLCH
oklch(65.1% 0.098 174.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3653 0.6310 0.5493)
HSV
hsv(165, 60%, 64%)
LAB
lab(60.97% -34.37 4.02)
LCH
lch(60.97% 34.60 173.33)
CMYK
cmyk(60%, 0%, 15%, 36%)

Etymology

Plumb
adjective

Latin plumbum, lead — referring to the lead-weighted plumb-line of pre-modern carpentry. As a color modifier, plumb implies a clear-and-vertical-true quality where the hue carries the visual register of gravity-aligned-and-perfectly-vertical surface. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to level and squared in usage.

Roller
noun

The family Coraciidae — Old World rollers whose acrobatic flight gives the family its name. Coracias caudatus (lilac-breasted roller) of southern Africa displays saturated turquoise wing covers. The color refers to a male lilac-breasted roller's wing: a saturated, slightly cool deep turquoise.

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.

#42a38b
Original
#9e998a
Protanopia
#8f8f8d
Deuteranopia
#00a59c
Tritanopia
#8d8d8d
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
3.07:1
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
6.84:1

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
##42A38B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3653 0.6310 0.5493)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.098

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