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Calm Atoll

#55b18c
Notes

Calm Atoll (#55B18C) is a true teal 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 (156°, 37%, 51%) 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 magenta. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#55b18c
RGB
rgb(85, 177, 140)
HSL
hsl(156, 37%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(156 33% 31%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.4% 0.105 164.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4272 0.6858 0.5584)
HSV
hsv(156, 52%, 69%)
LAB
lab(65.96% -36.35 10.67)
LCH
lch(65.96% 37.89 163.64)
CMYK
cmyk(52%, 0%, 21%, 31%)

Etymology

Calm
adjective

Latin calma, heat of the day — paradoxically drifted in Italian to mean stillness. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as untroubled. Calm blue, calm gray: moderate saturation combined with optical quiet. Sits at the crisp-bucket near quiet and steady.

Atoll
noun

A ring-shaped coral reef enclosing a central lagoon — the geological signature of subsiding volcanic islands ringed by upward-growing coral. Atoll color refers to the unifying blue-green of a Maldivian-style atoll lagoon seen from above: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green with the optical clarity of shallow tropical water.

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.

#55b18c
Original
#aea68a
Protanopia
#a09c8e
Deuteranopia
#33b1a7
Tritanopia
#9b9b9b
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
2.61:1
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
8.05:1

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
##55B18C
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4272 0.6858 0.5584)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.105

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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