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Flashing Seagrass

#42d9bd
Notes

Flashing Seagrass (#42D9BD) is a true teal with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (169°, 67%, 55%) 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
#42d9bd
RGB
rgb(66, 217, 189)
HSL
hsl(169, 67%, 55%)
HWB
hwb(169 26% 15%)
OKLCH
oklch(80.0% 0.131 177.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4467 0.8393 0.7448)
HSV
hsv(169, 70%, 85%)
LAB
lab(78.73% -45.73 2.38)
LCH
lch(78.73% 45.80 177.02)
CMYK
cmyk(70%, 0%, 13%, 15%)

Etymology

Flashing
adjective

Old English flasch, flash — present-participle of flash. As a color modifier, flashing implies a saturated-and-rapid-on-off quality, the bright color of emergency-vehicle and photographic-flash light-burst surfaces. Sits at the bright-and-flashing end of the grid, parallel to coruscating and flickering in usage.

Seagrass
noun

Marine flowering plants — distinct from algae — that form underwater meadows in shallow coastal waters worldwide. Genera include Zostera, Posidonia, Thalassia. The color refers to a tropical seagrass meadow at low tide: a soft, slightly cool deep blue-green with the satin finish of submerged grass-leaves.

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.

#42d9bd
Original
#d1ccbc
Protanopia
#bcbdbf
Deuteranopia
#00dcd1
Tritanopia
#b7b7b7
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
1.77:1
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
11.89:1

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
##42D9BD
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4467 0.8393 0.7448)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.131

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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