colors
Back to gallery

Sharp Phosphor

#c4e37b
Notes

Sharp Phosphor (#C4E37B) is a true lime 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 (78°, 65%, 69%) 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
#c4e37b
RGB
rgb(196, 227, 123)
HSL
hsl(78, 65%, 69%)
HWB
hwb(78 48% 11%)
OKLCH
oklch(87.1% 0.135 122.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7920 0.8865 0.5325)
HSV
hsv(78, 46%, 89%)
LAB
lab(86.06% -26.28 47.22)
LCH
lch(86.06% 54.04 119.10)
CMYK
cmyk(14%, 0%, 46%, 11%)

Etymology

Sharp
adjective

Old English scearp, cutting, pointed — applied metaphorically to color since the seventeenth century for hues that read as definite and edge-defined. Sharp red, sharp green: the implication is saturation combined with high-contrast crispness. Sits in the bright-bucket center alongside crisp and clear, with a slightly more incisive edge.

Phosphor
noun

A chemical that emits light when excited by an external energy source — the green-and-yellow phosphors of cathode-ray tubes, the yellow phosphor coatings of fluorescent tubes, and the white-LED yellow phosphor over a blue LED. The color refers to a yellow-phosphor-coated LED at full brightness: a saturated, slightly cool yellow with the optical brightness of electroluminescent emission.

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.

#c4e37b
Original
#eed872
Protanopia
#e9d781
Deuteranopia
#cbdaca
Tritanopia
#d5d5d5
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
1.44:1
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
14.62:1

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
##C4E37B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7920 0.8865 0.5325)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.135

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.

Related Colors

Canvas