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Serene Taurus Verdigris

#4aada9
Notes

Serene Taurus Verdigris (#4AADA9) is a true cyan 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 (178°, 40%, 48%) 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
#4aada9
RGB
rgb(74, 173, 169)
HSL
hsl(178, 40%, 48%)
HWB
hwb(178 29% 32%)
OKLCH
oklch(68.8% 0.092 191.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3966 0.6699 0.6597)
HSV
hsv(178, 57%, 68%)
LAB
lab(65.13% -29.63 -6.66)
LCH
lch(65.13% 30.37 192.66)
CMYK
cmyk(57%, 0%, 2%, 32%)

Etymology

Serene
adjective

Latin serēnus, clear / unclouded. As a color modifier, serene implies a clear-and-untroubled quality where the hue carries the visual register of cloudless-bright-day atmospheric stability. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to placid and untroubled in usage.

Taurus
modifier

Latin taurus, bull-of-the-zodiac. As a color modifier, taurus implies a bull-and-earth-sign-and-Venus-ruled-fixed-earth quality, the visual register of Mesopotamian-bull-and-Greek-Taurus hand-bull-and-earth-sign-and-Venus-ruled-fixed-earth Mesopotamian-bull-and-Greek-Taurus-and-Pleiades-cluster taurus-and-bull-and-earth-sign surfaces under Mesopotamian-bull-and-Greek-Taurus-and-Pleiades-cluster spring-and-April-and-May fixed-earth-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to aries and gemini in usage.

Verdigris
noun

The basic copper carbonate that forms on weathered copper and bronze — the pigment scraped from oxidized metal and used in Renaissance painting before being supplanted by more stable greens. The color refers to a thick verdigris on aged copper roofing or the Statue of Liberty's surface: a soft, slightly muted blue-green with the powdery finish of mineral oxide. Cooler than patina, warmer than seafoam, with the archaeological weight of a mineral made by time.

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.

#4aada9
Original
#a4a5a9
Protanopia
#9499aa
Deuteranopia
#00b1ab
Tritanopia
#989898
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
2.68:1
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
7.84:1

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
##4AADA9
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3966 0.6699 0.6597)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.092

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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