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Strobing Bluestem

#56cb77
Notes

Strobing Bluestem (#56CB77) is a true green 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 (137°, 53%, 57%) 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
#56cb77
RGB
rgb(86, 203, 119)
HSL
hsl(137, 53%, 57%)
HWB
hwb(137 34% 20%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.5% 0.160 150.1)
HSV
hsv(137, 58%, 80%)
LAB
lab(73.56% -51.28 32.22)
LCH
lch(73.56% 60.57 147.86)
CMYK
cmyk(58%, 0%, 41%, 20%)

Etymology

Strobing
adjective

Greek stróbos, whirling — present-participle of strobe. As a color modifier, strobing implies a saturated-and-pulse-flashing quality, the bright color of concert-strobe-light and photographic-strobe high-frequency-pulse light emission. Sits at the bright-and-flashing end of the grid, parallel to flashing and pulsating in usage.

Bluestem
noun

The genera Andropogon and Schizachyrium — North American native prairie grasses whose stems shift from green to blue-purple in autumn. The color refers to S. scoparium (little bluestem) in midsummer: a soft, slightly cool blue-green-gray with the matte finish of upright prairie grass.

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.

#56cb77
Original
#ccbb71
Protanopia
#bdb07c
Deuteranopia
#37c8b6
Tritanopia
#acacac
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
2.06:1
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
10.20:1

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