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Pragmatic Helen Moss

#688f54
Notes

Pragmatic Helen Moss (#688F54) 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 (100°, 26%, 45%) places it in the muted 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
#688f54
RGB
rgb(104, 143, 84)
HSL
hsl(100, 26%, 45%)
HWB
hwb(100 33% 44%)
OKLCH
oklch(60.6% 0.095 135.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4400 0.5565 0.3542)
HSV
hsv(100, 41%, 56%)
LAB
lab(55.31% -24.92 27.14)
LCH
lch(55.31% 36.84 132.55)
CMYK
cmyk(27%, 0%, 41%, 44%)

Etymology

Pragmatic
adjective

Greek pragmatikós, of business / practical — adjectival suffix -ic. As a color modifier, pragmatic implies a clear-and-purpose-fit-and-no-nonsense quality where the hue carries the visual register of straightforward-utilitarian-and-functional decision-making. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and functional in usage.

Helen
modifier

Greek Ἑλένη, Helen-of-Troy. As a color modifier, helen implies a Helen-of-Troy-and-fairest-face quality, the visual register of Helen-of-Troy-and-Tyndareus-Sparta hand-Helen-of-Troy-and-fairest-face Helen-of-Troy-and-Tyndareus-Sparta-and-Iliad-Homeric helen-and-Helen-of-Troy-and-fairest-face surfaces under Helen-of-Troy-and-Tyndareus-Sparta-and-Iliad-Homeric Mycenaean-and-Trojan Bronze-Age-Aegean-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to eros and hera in usage.

Moss
noun

Bryophyta — the nonvascular plants that colonized land 470 million years ago, before vascular plants and far before flowers. The color refers to a thick mat of Hypnum or sphagnum on a temperate forest floor: a soft, slightly yellow-shifted green with the velvet texture of millimeter-scale leaves. Dustier than fern, deeper than lichen, with the slow patience of a plant that lives by absorbing rain through its surface.

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.

#688f54
Original
#938750
Protanopia
#8d8357
Deuteranopia
#678b80
Tritanopia
#828282
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).
AA Largeon White
3.72:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
5.65:1

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
##688F54
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4400 0.5565 0.3542)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.095

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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