Spotlit Pax Avocado
Spotlit Pax Avocado (#89AA34) is a true lime 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 (77°, 53%, 44%) 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.
Etymology
English compound spot + lit — past-participle of spotlight. As a color modifier, spotlit implies a saturated-and-narrow-beam-illuminated quality, the bright color of theatrical-stage-and-museum-display directed-spotlight focused-beam illumination. Sits at the bright-and-saturated end of the grid, parallel to sunlit and brilliant in usage.
Latin pax, peace-or-treaty. As a color modifier, pax implies a Latin-peace-and-Pax-Romana-and-Pax-Augusta quality, the visual register of Pax-Romana-and-Ara-Pacis hand-Latin-peace-and-Pax-Romana-and-Pax-Augusta Pax-Romana-and-Ara-Pacis-and-Augustan-Rome pax-and-Latin-peace surfaces under Pax-Romana-and-Ara-Pacis-and-Augustan-Rome Augustan-and-Antonine-Rome imperial-peace-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to ave and salve 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.