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Forthright Vihreä

#559916
Notes

Forthright Vihreä (#559916) 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 (91°, 75%, 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
#559916
RGB
rgb(85, 153, 22)
HSL
hsl(91, 75%, 34%)
HWB
hwb(91 9% 40%)
OKLCH
oklch(61.4% 0.169 134.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3977 0.5935 0.1962)
HSV
hsv(91, 86%, 60%)
LAB
lab(56.85% -42.13 55.27)
LCH
lch(56.85% 69.50 127.31)
CMYK
cmyk(44%, 0%, 86%, 40%)

Etymology

Forthright
adjective

Old English forð-riht, straight ahead, direct. Used as a color modifier in Anglo-Saxon-revival contexts for hues that read as honest and unguarded. Forthright red, forthright blue: the saturation is full, the hue is presented without ornamentation or qualification. Sits in the bold-bucket center alongside frank and direct.

Vihreä
noun

The Finnish word for green — used for the saturated green of Finnish summer forests and the green-and-blue of the Finnish suomenlippu national flag's lake-and-forest symbolism. The color refers to a Finnish boreal forest understory: a saturated, slightly cool deep yellow-green with the matte finish of moss-and-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.

#559916
Original
#9f8c00
Protanopia
#968627
Deuteranopia
#549382
Tritanopia
#818181
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
3.53:1
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
5.95:1

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
##559916
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3977 0.5935 0.1962)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.169

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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