Serene Dew Verdigris
Serene Dew Verdigris (#56B1B1) is a true cyan 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 (180°, 37%, 52%) 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 red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin serēnus, clear / unclouded. As a color modifier, serene implies a clear-and-untroubled quality where the hue carries the visual register of cloudless-bright-day atmospheric stability. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to placid and untroubled in usage.
Old English dēaw, morning-moisture. As a color modifier, dew implies a beaded-and-fresh-and-morning-moisture quality, the visual register of spider-web-and-meadow-grass-dew hand-beaded-and-pearl-and-morning spider-web-and-meadow-grass-and-petal-edge dewed-and-beaded-and-pearl surfaces under spider-web-and-meadow-grass first-light-of-dawn-and-rising-mist-and-pearl morning-meadow-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to mist and gleam in usage.
The basic copper carbonate that forms on weathered copper and bronze — the pigment scraped from oxidized metal and used in Renaissance painting before being supplanted by more stable greens. The color refers to a thick verdigris on aged copper roofing or the Statue of Liberty's surface: a soft, slightly muted blue-green with the powdery finish of mineral oxide. Cooler than patina, warmer than seafoam, with the archaeological weight of a mineral made by time.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.