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Straightforward Ruff Peacock

#81cccf
Notes

Straightforward Ruff Peacock (#81CCCF) 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 (182°, 45%, 66%) 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.

HEX
#81cccf
RGB
rgb(129, 204, 207)
HSL
hsl(182, 45%, 66%)
HWB
hwb(182 51% 19%)
OKLCH
oklch(79.7% 0.075 199.0)
HSV
hsv(182, 38%, 81%)
LAB
lab(77.49% -22.44 -8.85)
LCH
lch(77.49% 24.12 201.52)
CMYK
cmyk(38%, 1%, 0%, 19%)

Etymology

Straightforward
adjective

English compound straight + forward — sharing root with German geradeaus. As a color modifier, straightforward implies a clear-and-direct-and-unencumbered quality where the hue carries the visual register of clear-aim-and-uncomplicated character. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to candid and direct in usage.

Ruff
modifier

Old English ruffe, Elizabethan-pleated-collar. As a color modifier, ruff implies a starched-and-Elizabethan-pleated-collar quality, the visual register of Elizabethan-and-Spanish-Habsburg-ruff hand-starched-and-Elizabethan-pleated-collar Elizabethan-and-Spanish-Habsburg-ruff-and-Holbein-portrait ruff-and-starched-and-Elizabethan-pleated-collar surfaces under Elizabethan-and-Spanish-Habsburg-ruff-and-Holbein-portrait Tudor-and-Spanish-Habsburg-court starched-collar-light. Sits at the modifier-and-textile end of the grid, parallel to gown and frock in usage.

Peacock
noun

Pavo cristatus, the Indian peafowl whose male displays the most elaborate sexual ornament in birds — a fan of two-meter eyespotted tail feathers in iridescent blue-green. The color is structural, not pigmented: created by interference patterns in the feather barbules. Peacock blue refers to the dominant body color: a saturated, slightly muted teal-blue with the optical depth of structural color. Cooler than persian, warmer than sapphire.

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.

#81cccf
Original
#c2c6cf
Protanopia
#b4bbd0
Deuteranopia
#60d1cd
Tritanopia
#bcbcbc
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
1.83:1
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
11.47:1

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