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Holographic Fern

#55aa50
Notes

Holographic Fern (#55AA50) is a true green 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 (117°, 36%, 49%) 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
#55aa50
RGB
rgb(85, 170, 80)
HSL
hsl(117, 36%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(117 31% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(66.4% 0.151 142.6)
HSV
hsv(117, 53%, 67%)
LAB
lab(62.73% -44.09 38.30)
LCH
lch(62.73% 58.40 139.03)
CMYK
cmyk(50%, 0%, 53%, 33%)

Etymology

Holographic
adjective

Greek hólos (whole) and graphé (writing) — adjectival suffix -ic. As a color modifier, holographic implies a saturated-and-multi-angle-shifting quality, the bright color of holographic-credit-card and trading-card dichroic-film 3D-image-reflection. Sits at the bright-and-shifting end of the grid, parallel to iridescent and prismatic in usage.

Fern
noun

The Polypodiopsida — vascular spore-bearing plants that dominated terrestrial flora during the Carboniferous, when their compressed bodies became most of the world's coal. The color refers to the upper surface of a healthy mid-summer fern frond: a saturated, slightly muted green with the matte finish of mature pinnae. Deeper than moss, cooler than chartreuse, with the patient persistence of a plant family three hundred million years old.

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

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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.

#55aa50
Original
#ad9c48
Protanopia
#a29556
Deuteranopia
#4aa695
Tritanopia
#919191
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
2.90:1
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
7.25:1

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