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Clean Deneb Verdigris

#4abab3
Notes

Clean Deneb Verdigris (#4ABAB3) 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°, 45%, 51%) 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
#4abab3
RGB
rgb(74, 186, 179)
HSL
hsl(176, 45%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(176 29% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.3% 0.101 189.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4148 0.7200 0.6994)
HSV
hsv(176, 60%, 73%)
LAB
lab(69.34% -33.14 -5.93)
LCH
lch(69.34% 33.67 190.15)
CMYK
cmyk(60%, 0%, 4%, 27%)

Etymology

Clean
adjective

Old English clǣne, pure, free of dirt — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as crisp and uncontaminated by other pigments. Clean white, clean blue: moderate saturation combined with optical clarity. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside clear and true.

Deneb
modifier

Arabic dhanab-al-dajājah, tail-of-the-hen. As a color modifier, deneb implies a Cygnus-tail-and-summer-triangle quality, the visual register of Cygnus-Swan-and-Summer-Triangle-Deneb hand-Cygnus-tail-and-summer-triangle Cygnus-Swan-and-Summer-Triangle-and-Bortle-1-sky deneb-and-Cygnus-tail-and-summer-triangle surfaces under Cygnus-Swan-and-Summer-Triangle-and-Bortle-1-sky July-and-August-summer-vista white-supergiant-stellar-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to vega and altair 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.

#4abab3
Original
#b0b1b3
Protanopia
#9fa4b4
Deuteranopia
#00bfb8
Tritanopia
#a2a2a2
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
2.34:1
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
8.97:1

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
##4ABAB3
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4148 0.7200 0.6994)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.101

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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