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Iridescent Groen

#85b321
Notes

Iridescent Groen (#85B321) is a true lime with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (79°, 69%, 42%) 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 indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#85b321
RGB
rgb(133, 179, 33)
HSL
hsl(79, 69%, 42%)
HWB
hwb(79 13% 30%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.8% 0.171 126.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5592 0.6969 0.2490)
HSV
hsv(79, 82%, 70%)
LAB
lab(67.53% -35.18 62.87)
LCH
lch(67.53% 72.04 119.23)
CMYK
cmyk(26%, 0%, 82%, 30%)

Etymology

Iridescent
adjective

Latin Īris, rainbow — adjectival suffix -escent, named for the Greek goddess of the rainbow. As a color modifier, iridescent implies a saturated-and-multi-spectrum-shifting quality, the bright color of peacock-feather-and-soap-bubble structurally-colored-and-thin-film optical-interference patterns. Sits at the bright-and-shifting end of the grid, parallel to prismatic and holographic in usage.

Groen
noun

The Dutch word for green — used for the Hollands Groen of Delft Blue's complementary glaze and the green polders of Dutch reclaimed-land farmland. The color refers to a Delft-pottery green underglaze: a saturated, slightly cool green with the matte finish of fired tin-glaze. The Dutch cousin of green.

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.

#85b321
Original
#bda600
Protanopia
#b7a432
Deuteranopia
#8baa99
Tritanopia
#9f9f9f
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
2.48:1
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
8.47:1

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
##85B321
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5592 0.6969 0.2490)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.171

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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