Bracing Lough Avocado
Bracing Lough Avocado (#88AF15) is a true lime with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (75°, 79%, 38%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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.
Etymology
Old French bracier, to embrace — present-participle of brace. As a color modifier, bracing implies a saturated-and-cool-and-energizing quality, the bright color of Atlantic-Cornish-coast and Hebridean-island fresh-sea-air visual-stimulation. Sits at the bright-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to invigorating and crisp in usage.
Irish-and-Scottish loch via Old Irish loch, lake / sea-inlet. As a color modifier, lough implies a still-mountain-water quality, the visual register of Connemara-and-Lough-Erne Irish-Highland glacial-cirque-and-river-mouth still-and-mirror-smooth fresh-water surfaces under Western-Irish overcast light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to mere and pond in usage.
Persea americana, the buttery drupe domesticated in Mesoamerica seven thousand years ago and named for the Aztec āhuacatl. The color refers to ripe avocado flesh just under the dark skin: a soft, slightly muted yellow-green with the warm undertones of plant fat. Earthier than pistachio, lighter than olive, with the recent kitchen association of a fruit only recently turned global staple.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.
Wide gamut
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.
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.