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Plotted Phase Teal

#48d6cd
Notes

Plotted Phase Teal (#48D6CD) is a true cyan with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (176°, 63%, 56%) 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
#48d6cd
RGB
rgb(72, 214, 205)
HSL
hsl(176, 63%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(176 28% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(79.9% 0.120 189.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4525 0.8279 0.8011)
HSV
hsv(176, 66%, 84%)
LAB
lab(78.39% -39.37 -6.66)
LCH
lch(78.39% 39.93 189.60)
CMYK
cmyk(66%, 0%, 4%, 16%)

Etymology

Plotted
adjective

Old English plot, small piece of ground — past-participle of plot. As a color modifier, plotted implies a clear-and-coordinate-mapped quality, the crisp color of Cartesian-and-graph-paper coordinate-plotted scientific-and-engineering data-visualization plot-line. Sits at the crisp-and-mapped end of the grid, parallel to mapped and surveyed in usage.

Phase
modifier

Greek phásis, appearance / phase-of-the-moon. As a color modifier, phase implies a moon-phase-and-cycle-stage quality, the visual register of lunar-and-tidal-cycle moon-phase-and-tidal-rhythm waxing-and-waning lunar-cycle surfaces under waxing-and-waning lunar-cycle light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to cycle and wane 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.

#48d6cd
Original
#cacbcd
Protanopia
#b5bbce
Deuteranopia
#00dbd3
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
1.78:1
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
11.78:1

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
##48D6CD
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4525 0.8279 0.8011)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.120

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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