colors
Back to gallery

Sanitary Mariner

#74a3b6
Notes

Sanitary Mariner (#74A3B6) 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°, 31%, 58%) 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
#74a3b6
RGB
rgb(116, 163, 182)
HSL
hsl(197, 31%, 58%)
HWB
hwb(197 45% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(68.9% 0.058 225.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4941 0.6342 0.7052)
HSV
hsv(197, 36%, 71%)
LAB
lab(64.39% -10.91 -14.83)
LCH
lch(64.39% 18.41 233.66)
CMYK
cmyk(36%, 10%, 0%, 29%)

Etymology

Sanitary
adjective

Latin sānitās, health — adjectival suffix -ary. As a color modifier, sanitary implies a clear-and-clean-and-medical quality, the crisp color of Bauhaus-and-Modern clinical-and-hospital interior-architecture white-tile-and-stainless-steel surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to hygienic and sterile in usage.

Mariner
noun

One who sails the sea — from the Latin mare. As a color name, mariner refers to the deep navy-and-cyan of traditional naval and merchant-marine uniforms: a saturated, slightly muted blue with the matte finish of dyed wool. Cooler than navy, warmer than ocean, with the maritime-uniform association of a word that always implies a working boat rather than a recreational one.

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.

#74a3b6
Original
#99a1b7
Protanopia
#8f99b6
Deuteranopia
#5ca9a9
Tritanopia
#9a9a9a
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
2.74:1
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
7.66:1

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
##74A3B6
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4941 0.6342 0.7052)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.058

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

Related Colors

Canvas