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Sturdy Sunbird

#559517
Notes

Sturdy Sunbird (#559517) is a deep lime with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (90°, 73%, 34%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#559517
RGB
rgb(85, 149, 23)
HSL
hsl(90, 73%, 34%)
HWB
hwb(90 9% 42%)
OKLCH
oklch(60.4% 0.164 133.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3931 0.5781 0.1935)
HSV
hsv(90, 85%, 58%)
LAB
lab(55.57% -40.42 53.88)
LCH
lch(55.57% 67.36 126.88)
CMYK
cmyk(43%, 0%, 85%, 42%)

Etymology

Sturdy
adjective

Old French estourdi, stunned, reckless — drifted in English to mean robust, well-built. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as durable and unfussy — the working browns of saddle leather, the working greens of pasture wool. Sits in the bold-and-warm corner alongside robust and solid.

Sunbird
noun

The family Nectariniidae — Old World sunbirds, the ecological equivalent of New World hummingbirds. Particularly Cinnyris jugularis (olive-backed sunbird) whose iridescent green throat catches direct sunlight. The color refers to a male sunbird's gorget: a saturated, slightly cool deep green with the iridescent satin finish of structural color.

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.

#559517
Original
#9b8800
Protanopia
#938327
Deuteranopia
#548f7f
Tritanopia
#7e7e7e
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
3.69:1
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
5.70:1

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
##559517
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3931 0.5781 0.1935)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.164

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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