colors
Back to gallery

Neat Quicksilver

#59b3d7
Notes

Neat Quicksilver (#59B3D7) 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 (197°, 61%, 60%) 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 orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#59b3d7
RGB
rgb(89, 179, 215)
HSL
hsl(197, 61%, 60%)
HWB
hwb(197 35% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.5% 0.100 226.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4394 0.6937 0.8284)
HSV
hsv(197, 59%, 84%)
LAB
lab(68.94% -16.50 -26.28)
LCH
lch(68.94% 31.03 237.88)
CMYK
cmyk(59%, 17%, 0%, 16%)

Etymology

Neat
adjective

Old French net, clean / pure — sharing root with Latin nitidus. As a color modifier, neat implies a clear-and-orderly quality where the hue carries the well-arranged visual register without clutter or excess. Sits at the crisp-and-orderly end of the grid, parallel to trim and tidy in usage.

Quicksilver
noun

The pre-modern English word for mercury (the liquid metal, element Hg) — also used metaphorically for anything fast-moving and changeable. Quicksilver color refers to a polished mercury bead's reflection: a soft, slightly cool pale blue-silver with the metallic-mirror finish of liquid mercury.

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.

#59b3d7
Original
#a0b0d9
Protanopia
#8ea2d7
Deuteranopia
#00bebf
Tritanopia
#a2a2a2
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
2.37:1
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
8.85:1

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
##59B3D7
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4394 0.6937 0.8284)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.100

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.

Related Colors

Canvas