#596157

sRGB: 89 / 97 / 87

Velvet petals surge toward distant shores
Secret gardens disappear beneath stillness
Tender memories embrace the coming dawn

#596157 belongs to the green family. Its hex code tells a screen to mix 89 red, 97 green and 87 blue on a scale of 0 to 255. On the HSL wheel, hue is a position around a circle: 108.0° lands in the green region. Its 5.4% saturation makes it close to gray at this lightness. HSL lightness is 36.1% on a scale from black (0%) to white (100%). Of black and white lettering, white has the clearer light-to-dark separation on this background (6.42:1), which helps the shapes of letters stand out.

Color conversions

sRGB (8-bit): 89, 97, 87
HSL: 108.00°, 5.43%, 36.08%
HSV / HSB: 108.00°, 10.31%, 38.04%
CMYK (approx.): 8.25%, 0.00%, 10.31%, 61.96%
CIE XYZ (D65, Y = 100 for white): 10.114, 11.361, 10.677
CIELAB (D65, 2° observer): 40.182, -5.226, 4.645
WCAG relative luminance: 0.11361
24-bit decimal: 5857623

CMYK uses a profile-free approximation. Printed output depends on the press, ink and paper. Lab uses a D65 white point.

Text contrast

Contrast tells you how clearly lettering separates from #596157 in light and dark. The ratio compares relative luminance, a measure of light weighted for human vision. Identical colors give 1:1 and black against white gives 21:1. A ratio of 2.99:1 falls just below the 3:1 AA minimum for large text. Body text needs at least 4.5:1 because its finer strokes are harder to distinguish.

Black text: 3.27:1

Normal text: Fail
Large text: AA

White text: 6.42:1

Normal text: AA
Large text: AAA

AA and AAA are WCAG accessibility levels. AAA sets a higher bar: 7:1 for normal text and 4.5:1 for large text. Large text begins at 18 pt regular or 14 pt bold. Ratings use the unrounded ratio.

Reference: WCAG text contrast guidance

Palettes & scales

Harmonies rotate the hue. Scales mix the starting color with white, black or middle gray in 20% steps in encoded sRGB.

Complementary

#5F5761 sits half a turn (180°) from #596157 on the HSL wheel. Keeping saturation and lightness steady while crossing to the opposite hue gives you a contrasting accent. Check text contrast separately before using the pair for lettering.

#596157 #5F5761

Analogous

#5E6157 and #57615A sit 30° to either side of #596157. The three hues are neighbors on the wheel, so you can change the color of a border or highlight while keeping it close to the original.

#5E6157 #596157 #57615A

Triadic

#596157, #575961 and #615759 are spaced 120° apart, forming a triangle on the wheel. Try one for the main color and the other two for accents.

#596157 #575961 #615759

Split complementary

Start at #596157 and look across the wheel. #5A5761 and #61575E sit 30° to either side of its exact opposite, giving you two different accent choices.

#596157 #5A5761 #61575E

Square

Starting with #596157, each quarter turn (90°) takes you to the next hue: #575E61, #5F5761, then #615A57. Across the square, #596157 pairs with #5F5761, and #575E61 with #615A57.

#596157 #575E61 #5F5761 #615A57

Tetradic

#596157 and #5F5761 are opposites, as are #57615F and #615759. Together they form a rectangle on the wheel, with alternating gaps of 60° and 120°.

#596157 #57615F #5F5761 #615759

Tints

Mixing #596157 with white in 20% steps produces this scale. The first mixture, #7A8179, keeps 80% of the original. By #DEDFDD, the mixture is 80% white.

#596157 #7A8179 #9BA09A #BDC0BC #DEDFDD #FFFFFF

Shades

Mixing #596157 with black in 20% steps produces this scale. The first mixture, #474E46, keeps 80% of the original. By #121311, the mixture is 80% black.

#596157 #474E46 #353A34 #242723 #121311 #000000

Tones

Mixing #596157 with middle gray in 20% steps produces this scale. The first mixture, #61675F, keeps 80% of the original. By #787A78, the mixture is 80% middle gray.

#596157 #61675F #696D67 #707470 #787A78 #808080

Copy color codes

Hex, RGB and HSL are three ways to write this screen color. Paste any of them into a CSS color property.

Hex

#596157

RGB

rgb(89 97 87)

HSL

hsl(108.000 5.435% 36.078%)

CSS example

.color-sample {
  background-color: #596157;
  color: #FFFFFF;
}

Channel breakdown

RGB

#596157 uses 89 red, 97 green and 87 blue. Each bar shows how much of that channel’s 0–255 range the screen uses.

Red 34.9%

Green 38.0%

Blue 34.1%

CMYK

A simple CMYK estimate for #596157 is 8.2% cyan, 0.0% magenta, 10.3% yellow and 62.0% black. These are ink amounts; a printer profile is needed to predict the result on paper.

Cyan 8.2%

Magenta 0.0%

Yellow 10.3%

Black 62.0%

Nearby colors

The nearest shorthand match is #556655. Its matching digit pairs let you write it as #565 in CSS. For a modern design, keep #596157 when you want an exact match. Use its web-safe neighbor, #666666, when matching a legacy palette of 216 colors.

Nearest shorthand: #556655 Nearest web-safe: #666666

Gradient to complement

#596157 #5A5F59 #5B5E5A #5C5C5C #5D5A5E #5E595F #5F5761

Color vision previews

Compare how #596157 appears in each simulation. When two chart lines or status indicators become hard to tell apart, a label, shape or line pattern gives readers another way to distinguish them. Individual perception varies.

Protanopia

A red–green color vision deficiency. Without a distinct response from long-wavelength cones, some reds and greens can look alike, and reds can appear darker.

#625F56

Deuteranopia

A red–green color vision deficiency. Without a distinct response from medium-wavelength cones, some greens can be difficult to distinguish from reds or browns.

#605E57

Tritanopia

A blue–yellow color vision deficiency. Without a distinct response from short-wavelength cones, blue can resemble green, and yellow can resemble pink.

#59605E

Protanomaly (50%)

An altered long-wavelength cone response can make reds appear dimmer and harder to distinguish from greens. This swatch shows the model’s halfway setting.

#5F6057

Deuteranomaly (50%)

An altered medium-wavelength cone response can reduce the visible difference between reds and greens. This swatch shows the model’s halfway setting.

#5E5F57

Tritanomaly (50%)

An altered short-wavelength cone response can make blue harder to distinguish from green. This swatch shows the model’s halfway setting.

#59615A

Grayscale (luminance)

This design check removes hue and preserves relative luminance so you can compare light and dark areas.

#5F5F5F

Partial grayscale (50% blend)

This design check mixes the original color halfway toward its grayscale equivalent in linear light. Use it to see how a design holds up as color fades.

#5C605B

Reference: National Eye Institute: Types of Color Vision Deficiency

Technical reference

CAM16 and CIECAM02 below assume D65 white, an average surround, background Y of 20 against white at 100, and adapting luminance of 4.07 cd/m².

Linear sRGB

These channels scale with emitted light. Use them for lighting calculations and physically meaningful blends.

R 0.09990 G 0.11954 B 0.09531

Display P3

P3 displays can reproduce a wider range of reds and greens. These coordinates reproduce this same sRGB swatch on a color-managed P3 display.

R 0.35484 G 0.37940 B 0.34433

Linear Display P3

These P3 channels are proportional to light, before display encoding.

R 0.10339 G 0.11889 B 0.09714

CIE xyY

The x and y coordinates locate chromaticity on a diagram. Y gives relative luminance on a scale where white is 100.

x 0.315 y 0.353 Y 11.361

CMY

Ideal cyan, magenta and yellow are the complements of the encoded red, green and blue channels.

C % 65.098 M % 61.961 Y % 65.882

Binary RGB

Each eight-bit group represents one channel. Together they store the 24-bit hex color.

01011001 01100001 01010111