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Phosphoric Heath

#4db955
Notes

Phosphoric Heath (#4DB955) is a true green 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 (124°, 44%, 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 violet. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#4db955
RGB
rgb(77, 185, 85)
HSL
hsl(124, 44%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(124 30% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.0% 0.171 144.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4198 0.7163 0.3797)
HSV
hsv(124, 58%, 73%)
LAB
lab(67.22% -51.51 41.22)
LCH
lch(67.22% 65.97 141.33)
CMYK
cmyk(58%, 0%, 54%, 27%)

Etymology

Phosphoric
adjective

Greek phōsphóros, light-bringer — adjectival suffix -ic. As a color modifier, phosphoric implies a saturated-and-cool-glow quality, the bright color of match-tip-strike and firefly phosphorus-emission luminescence. Sits at the bright-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to phosphorescent and fluorescent in usage.

Heath
noun

An open uncultivated land covered by heather (Calluna), gorse (Ulex), and grass — particularly the lowland heaths of southern England. Heath color refers to a Surrey heath in early summer: a soft, slightly muted deep yellow-green with the matte finish of woody-and-grass undergrowth.

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.

#4db955
Original
#bca94c
Protanopia
#aea05c
Deuteranopia
#38b4a2
Tritanopia
#9b9b9b
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
2.50:1
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
8.39:1

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
##4DB955
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4198 0.7163 0.3797)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.171

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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