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Iridescent Bluestem

#8be693
Notes

Iridescent Bluestem (#8BE693) is a soft green 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 (125°, 65%, 72%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary violet. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#8be693
RGB
rgb(139, 230, 147)
HSL
hsl(125, 65%, 72%)
HWB
hwb(125 55% 10%)
OKLCH
oklch(84.7% 0.144 146.2)
HSV
hsv(125, 40%, 90%)
LAB
lab(84.06% -43.91 32.13)
LCH
lch(84.06% 54.41 143.80)
CMYK
cmyk(40%, 0%, 36%, 10%)

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.

Bluestem
noun

The genera Andropogon and Schizachyrium — North American native prairie grasses whose stems shift from green to blue-purple in autumn. The color refers to S. scoparium (little bluestem) in midsummer: a soft, slightly cool blue-green-gray with the matte finish of upright prairie grass.

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.

#8be693
Original
#e9d78d
Protanopia
#dbce98
Deuteranopia
#7fe2d1
Tritanopia
#cdcdcd
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
1.52:1
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
13.84:1

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