Open Aspen
Open Aspen (#CFE790) is a soft 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 (77°, 64%, 74%) 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 indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English open, unobstructed — used as a color modifier since the eighteenth century for hues that read as airy or uncrowded. Open blue, open green: moderate saturation combined with optical spaciousness, the slight visual breath of a hue that doesn't crowd the surface it covers. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside clear.
Populus tremuloides, the North American quaking aspen whose leaves turn gold-yellow in autumn — the unifying fall color of Rocky Mountain landscapes. The color refers to an aspen grove at peak fall color: a saturated, slightly cool gold-yellow with the satin finish of carotenoid-rich autumn leaves. Cooler than ginkgo.
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.