colors
Back to gallery

Untroubled Baltic

#518b8f
Notes

Untroubled Baltic (#518B8F) 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 (184°, 28%, 44%) places it in the muted 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
#518b8f
RGB
rgb(81, 139, 143)
HSL
hsl(184, 28%, 44%)
HWB
hwb(184 32% 44%)
OKLCH
oklch(59.9% 0.061 201.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3711 0.5394 0.5566)
HSV
hsv(184, 43%, 56%)
LAB
lab(54.23% -17.84 -8.08)
LCH
lch(54.23% 19.59 204.37)
CMYK
cmyk(43%, 3%, 0%, 44%)

Etymology

Untroubled
adjective

Latin turbāre, to disturb — negative-prefix un- plus past-participle of trouble. As a color modifier, untroubled implies a clear-and-calm-and-undisturbed quality where the hue carries no visual agitation. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to serene and placid in usage.

Baltic
noun

The northern European brackish sea between Scandinavia and the European mainland — the source of Baltic amber and the route of medieval Hanseatic League trade. Baltic color refers to mid-depth Baltic water at the Helsinki archipelago: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the optical complexity of low-salinity high-latitude inland sea.

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.

#518b8f
Original
#83868f
Protanopia
#797e8f
Deuteranopia
#348f8c
Tritanopia
#7f7f7f
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).
AA Largeon White
3.86:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
5.44:1

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
##518B8F
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3711 0.5394 0.5566)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.061

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

Related Colors

Canvas