Tints & Shades
50
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
Scale from white (50) through Dark Cyan (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #008B8B
- RGB
- rgb(0, 139, 139)
- HSL
- hsl(180, 100%, 27%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.577 0.098 195)
- CMYK
- cmyk(100%, 0%, 0%, 45%)
--color-dark-cyanbg-[#008B8B]Accessibility
Score: 39/100On White (#FFF)
4.15:1
On Black (#000)
5.07:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
3.8:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #008B8B
color: #008B8B
bg-[#008B8B] text-[#000000]
border-left: 4px solid #008B8B
Color Harmonies
Similar Colors
Color Meaning & Psychology
Teal occupies the sophisticated intersection of blue's trust and green's vitality. It feels calming yet distinctive — neither the corporate ubiquity of navy nor the aggressive freshness of lime green. Teal is associated with healing, emotional balance, and clarity of thought. It gained significant cultural cachet in the 2010s as a design-forward alternative to standard blues in healthcare and technology branding. Deeper teals feel luxurious and authoritative; lighter teals feel fresh and energetic. Teal is one of the few colors that reads well in both light and dark themes. Its primary challenge is legibility — teal text on white often fails WCAG AA without careful shade selection. Its deeper, richer tone gives it gravitas and sophistication, making it well-suited for primary brand colors, typography, and contexts where authority matters.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Dark Cyan is applied in professional design.
- Healthcare technology and health apps
- Mental health and wellness platforms
- Fintech brands seeking blue-alternative trust
- Premium interior design and home accessories
- Environmental and ocean-focused organizations
- Contemporary hotel and hospitality brands
- Corporate communications departments
- Spa and beauty wellness destinations
Accessibility Considerations
Normal Text
Fails AA
4.5:1 minimum required
Large Text
Passes AA Large
3:1 minimum required
UI Components
Meets 1.4.11
3:1 for non-text UI
Dark Cyan is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (5.07:1). Avoid white text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #008B8B;Text
color: #008B8B;Border
border: 2px solid #008B8B;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #008B8B40;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #008B8B, #50bcbb);Tailwind-style
--color-dark-cyan: #008B8B;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Dark Cyan without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#008B8B]Text
text-[#008B8B]Border
border-[#008B8B]Ring
ring-[#008B8B]Fill
fill-[#008B8B]From (gradient)
from-[#008B8B]Via (gradient)
via-[#008B8B]To (gradient)
to-[#008B8B]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Dark Cyan design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-dark-cyan: #008B8B;
--color-dark-cyan-rgb: 0, 139, 139;
--color-dark-cyan-hsl: 180, 100%, 27%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-dark-cyan: #008B8B; $color-dark-cyan-rgb: 0, 139, 139; $color-dark-cyan-hsl: 180, 100%, 27%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'dark-cyan': '#008B8B',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-dark-cyan: #008B8B;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"dark-cyan": {
"value": "#008B8B",
"type": "color",
"description": "Dark Cyan — #008B8B"
}
}More teal colors
View all →What Does Dark Cyan Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Dark Cyan (#008B8B) sits at the exact chromatic intersection where green's vitality meets blue's reliability. This isn't a compromise—it's a synthesis, and the result is a color that reads as balance: balanced, confident, and impossible to reduce to a single emotion.
- Across color psychology research, teal consistently tests high for "innovation" associations, making Dark Cyan a reliable vehicle for balance in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on teal-family tones to project modern sophistication and trustworthiness—values that Dark Cyan communicates in a deep key.
- At 100% saturation, Dark Cyan reads as vivid—Vivid teals are a signature of contemporary tech design—digitally native, modern, and distinct enough to stand out in a landscape of blue-dominated software interfaces.
- Dark Cyan's deep lightness (27%) shifts its psychological register: Deep teal and dark cyan carry genuine authority and depth—functioning like a cooler alternative to navy that still communicates seriousness and precision.
Dark Cyan is the color for when you need to be trusted AND interesting—a combination most colors can only approximate.
How to Use Dark Cyan in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Dark Cyan is one of the most versatile colors in professional design systems—it performs equally well as a dominant brand color, a UI accent, and a data visualization tone. Its vivid saturation means it works in both large and small applications without visual fatigue.
- Avoid: traditional, conservative institutions that need to signal historical trust (navy serves better), children's products where warmer colors perform better, and food branding.
- Color harmonies: Dark Cyan's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Dark Cyan's vivid saturation (100%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.
- Dark Cyan creates strong legibility with black text overlays (5.1:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
- Typography: Dark Cyan as text requires a dark background; its 27% lightness means it provides 4.2:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
Dark Cyan is the color for when you need to be trusted AND interesting—a combination most colors can only approximate.
Dark Cyan Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Dark Cyan (#008B8B) reaches 5.07:1 contrast with black text—meeting WCAG 2.1 AA minimum of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. It clears standard production accessibility requirements. Relative luminance: 20.3%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 4.15:1 — AA (large text only)
- As text on black (#000000): 5.07:1 — AA ✓
- Best text color on Dark Cyan background: Black (#000000) at 5.07:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 20.3% — mid-range luminance—it sits in the transition zone where both dark and light text approaches require testing against the 4.5:1 WCAG threshold
- Dark Cyan qualifies for normal body text and all larger sizes (AA).
- Color blindness consideration: tritanopia (blue-yellow color blindness, ~0.003% of population) may affect how this color reads. While rare, for maximum accessibility supplement color signals with text or icon indicators in critical states.
Always verify Dark Cyan at its final intended size and weight using a real contrast checker—font weight and rendering environment affect perceived legibility beyond what raw ratios capture.
Dark Cyan in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Dark Cyan's brand positioning falls squarely in the territory of clarity, innovation, balance, and modern sophistication. Industry data supports its strongest performance in healthcare technology, SaaS & B2B software, financial technology categories, where the vivid saturation calibrates the message at a deep, considered level.
- Healthcare Technology: Teal has become the signature color of healthcare technology for a specific reason: it bridges clinical trust (blue's domain) with vitality and growth (green's domain), communicating that a product is both reliable and innovative. (examples: Apple, Microsoft, Salesforce) Particularly effective for telemedicine, health tracking apps, and digital wellness platforms that need clinical credibility without institutional coldness.
- SaaS & B2B Software: The modern SaaS industry has adopted teal as an alternative to blue that signals both professionalism and innovation. It works especially well for productivity tools, data platforms, and workflow software where clarity and intelligence are the core brand values. Teal differentiates from the blue-dominated enterprise market while maintaining the trust signals B2B buyers require.
- Financial Technology: Fintech brands use teal to signal that they're reimagining financial services—keeping the trustworthiness of traditional blue but adding a freshness that traditional banks lack. The color says "we take your money seriously and we're different from old banking." (examples: Apple, Microsoft, Salesforce) Works best paired with clean white and dark charcoal for maximum fintech modernity.
- Brand positioning: Dark Cyan is best suited for brands projecting innovation, clarity, balance. Categories outside this positioning—traditional—tend to see weaker results.
- Adjacent applications: Beyond primary industries, Dark Cyan works effectively in health tech platforms, modern SaaS UIs, financial dashboards—contexts where sophistication serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
For marketers and brand strategists, Dark Cyan is a commitment to clarity, innovation, balance, and modern sophistication. Match it with industries that make that promise and it will pay dividends consistently.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Dark Cyan? ▾
- The hex code for Dark Cyan is #008B8B. Its RGB values are rgb(0, 139, 139) and its HSL values are hsl(180, 100%, 27%).
- What does Dark Cyan mean in design? ▾
- Teal occupies the sophisticated intersection of blue's trust and green's vitality. It feels calming yet distinctive — neither the corporate ubiquity of navy nor the aggressive freshness of lime green. Teal is associated with healing, emotional balance, and clarity of thought. It gained significant cultural cachet in the 2010s as a design-forward alternative to standard blues in healthcare and technology branding. Deeper teals feel luxurious and authoritative; lighter teals feel fresh and energetic. Teal is one of the few colors that reads well in both light and dark themes. Its primary challenge is legibility — teal text on white often fails WCAG AA without careful shade selection. Its deeper, richer tone gives it gravitas and sophistication, making it well-suited for primary brand colors, typography, and contexts where authority matters.
- Is Dark Cyan WCAG accessible? ▾
- Dark Cyan (#008B8B) passes WCAG AA-large on white with a 4.15:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 39/100.
- What colors go well with Dark Cyan? ▾
- Dark Cyan pairs well with its complementary color Red (#FF0000). Analogous colors like Mint Cream and Opal also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Dark Cyan used for? ▾
- Dark Cyan is commonly used for: Healthcare technology and health apps; Mental health and wellness platforms; Fintech brands seeking blue-alternative trust; Premium interior design and home accessories; Environmental and ocean-focused organizations.
- What are the CSS and Tailwind values for Dark Cyan? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #008B8B` or `background-color: #008B8B`. The CSS custom property is `--color-dark-cyan: #008B8B`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#008B8B]` for backgrounds or `text-[#008B8B]` for text.