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Velvety Pickle

#52a527
Notes

Velvety Pickle (#52A527) 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 (100°, 62%, 40%) 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
#52a527
RGB
rgb(82, 165, 39)
HSL
hsl(100, 62%, 40%)
HWB
hwb(100 15% 35%)
OKLCH
oklch(64.5% 0.177 137.3)
HSV
hsv(100, 76%, 65%)
LAB
lab(60.65% -47.02 53.68)
LCH
lch(60.65% 71.36 131.21)
CMYK
cmyk(50%, 0%, 76%, 35%)

Etymology

Velvety
adjective

An adjectival form of velvet, used since the eighteenth century for colors that read as if they had the matte light-absorbing quality of velvet. Implies high saturation combined with a non-glossy surface — the matte richness of a deep wine in a fabric rather than in a glass. Sits in the bold-and-deep corner of the grid alongside plush and lush.

Pickle
noun

A vinegar-cured or lacto-fermented cucumber — the brining process turns the bright green of a fresh cuke into a slightly muted gray-green as the chlorophyll degrades. The color refers to a deli kosher-dill in cross-section: a soft, slightly muted yellow-green with the slight translucency of cell walls breached by acid. Drabber than fresh cucumber, more chromatic than celadon, with the kitchen-shorthand reach of an everyday word.

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.

#52a527
Original
#ab970a
Protanopia
#a09034
Deuteranopia
#4d9f8d
Tritanopia
#8a8a8a
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
3.10:1
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
6.77:1

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