colors
Back to gallery

Pulsating Seaholly

#51c162
Notes

Pulsating Seaholly (#51C162) 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 (129°, 47%, 54%) 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
#51c162
RGB
rgb(81, 193, 98)
HSL
hsl(129, 47%, 54%)
HWB
hwb(129 32% 24%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.4% 0.168 146.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4396 0.7473 0.4252)
HSV
hsv(129, 58%, 76%)
LAB
lab(70.01% -51.82 38.29)
LCH
lch(70.01% 64.43 143.54)
CMYK
cmyk(58%, 0%, 49%, 24%)

Etymology

Pulsating
adjective

Latin pulsātio, beating — present-participle of pulsate, sharing root with pellere (to drive). As a color modifier, pulsating implies a saturated-and-beating-and-rhythmic quality, the bright color of rave-and-festival light-show synchronized-pulse rhythmic-emission. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to throbbing and strobing in usage.

Seaholly
noun

Eryngium maritimum, the European sea holly — a coastal-dune perennial with silver-blue spiny foliage and metallic-blue flower heads, persistent enough to weather Atlantic storms on exposed dune ridges. The color refers to fresh E. maritimum foliage: a soft, slightly cool silver-blue-green with the matte finish of waxy-cuticled coastal succulent.

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.

#51c162
Original
#c3b15a
Protanopia
#b5a769
Deuteranopia
#39bdab
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
2.29:1
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
9.15:1

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
##51C162
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4396 0.7473 0.4252)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.168

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.

Related Colors

Canvas