Tints & Shades
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Scale from white (50) through Forest Green (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #228B22
- RGB
- rgb(34, 139, 34)
- HSL
- hsl(120, 61%, 34%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.558 0.169 143)
- CMYK
- cmyk(76%, 0%, 76%, 45%)
--color-forest-greenbg-[#228B22]Accessibility
Score: 39/100On White (#FFF)
4.39:1
On Black (#000)
4.78:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
4.03:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #228B22
color: #228B22
bg-[#228B22] text-[#000000]
border-left: 4px solid #228B22
Color Harmonies
Similar Colors
Color Meaning & Psychology
Forest green is green at its most earthy and institutional. It evokes dense woodland, military camouflage, and the prestige of old money. It is the dominant green in premium outdoor brands (L.L.Bean, REI), country clubs, and ivy league aesthetics. Its darkness gives it a sophistication that lighter greens lack.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Forest Green is applied in professional design.
- Financial services and investment platforms
- Health, wellness, and organic food brands
- Environmental and sustainability organizations
- Pharmaceutical and medical products
- Agriculture and farming brands
- Eco-friendly consumer goods
- Real estate and property development
- Success and achievement badges in UI
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
Forest Green is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (4.78:1). Avoid white text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #228B22;Text
color: #228B22;Border
border: 2px solid #228B22;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #228B2240;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #228B22, #5bbc51);Tailwind-style
--color-forest-green: #228B22;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Forest Green without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#228B22]Text
text-[#228B22]Border
border-[#228B22]Ring
ring-[#228B22]Fill
fill-[#228B22]From (gradient)
from-[#228B22]Via (gradient)
via-[#228B22]To (gradient)
to-[#228B22]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Forest Green design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-forest-green: #228B22;
--color-forest-green-rgb: 34, 139, 34;
--color-forest-green-hsl: 120, 61%, 34%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-forest-green: #228B22; $color-forest-green-rgb: 34, 139, 34; $color-forest-green-hsl: 120, 61%, 34%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'forest-green': '#228B22',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-forest-green: #228B22;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"forest-green": {
"value": "#228B22",
"type": "color",
"description": "Forest Green — #228B22"
}
}Related Palettes & Combinations
Color Combinations
Accessible Color Pairs
More green colors
View all →What Does Forest Green Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Color researchers consistently find that green environments lower cortisol levels and increase feelings of calm and restorative focus. Forest Green carries this quality into designed spaces—projecting nature through its deep character at 34% lightness.
- Across color psychology research, green consistently tests high for "health" associations, making Forest Green a reliable vehicle for nature in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on green-family tones to project trustworthiness and reliability—values that Forest Green communicates in a deep key.
- At 61% saturation, Forest Green reads as moderately saturated—neither overwhelming nor passive, landing in the growth, nature, health, and balance zone with measured confidence.
- Forest Green's deep lightness (34%) shifts its psychological register: Forest and hunter greens project gravitas, tradition, and wealth—the preferred territory for luxury brands, financial institutions, and premium environmental products.
The enduring power of Forest Green is that it never needs to explain itself—growth, health, and permission are universally understood.
How to Use Forest Green in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
The design applications of Forest Green span from digital UI states to full brand identity systems. Its moderately saturated saturation (61%) means it reads as a clear, confident presence that holds its ground without overwhelming in both contexts—strong accents, headers, and primary brand applications where visual authority is required in background uses, more active as an accent.
- Avoid: warning or danger contexts (except for safety signs), over-saturated versions in premium luxury branding, and contexts requiring urgency.
- Color harmonies: Forest Green's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Forest Green's moderately saturated saturation (61%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.
- Forest Green creates strong legibility with black text overlays (4.8:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
- Typography: Forest Green as text requires a dark background; its 34% lightness means it provides 4.4:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
The enduring power of Forest Green is that it never needs to explain itself—growth, health, and permission are universally understood.
Forest Green Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Forest Green (#228B22) reaches 4.78:1 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: 18.9%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 4.39:1 — AA (large text only)
- As text on black (#000000): 4.78:1 — AA ✓
- Best text color on Forest Green background: Black (#000000) at 4.78:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 18.9% — 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
- Forest Green qualifies for normal body text and all larger sizes (AA).
Forest Green's WCAG profile makes it a compliant choice for most text applications.
Forest Green in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Forest Green (#228B22) is most at home in industries where growth, nature, health, and balance are key brand values. Its deep quality makes it particularly effective in Healthcare & Wellness contexts, where the moderately saturated saturation signals growth at exactly the right register.
- Healthcare & Wellness: Green's association with health, nature, and healing makes it the second-most-common color in healthcare branding (after blue). It signals vitality, recovery, and natural wellness without the clinical coldness of pure white or blue. (examples: Headspace, One Medical, Kaiser Permanente) Works best in teal-green and sage variations for digital health products; more saturated greens suit fitness and sports medicine.
- Finance & Banking: In Western markets, the green-money association is deeply embedded. Financial institutions use dark, sophisticated greens to communicate growth, prosperity, and fiduciary reliability. It's equally effective for positive portfolio indicators and "go" confirmation states in trading UIs. (examples: Capital One, PayPal, Visa) Dark greens with gold accents signal premium financial services; bright greens in fintech apps signal growth metrics.
- Sustainability & Organic: Green is the categorical color of environmental consciousness. Sustainability brands, organic food labels, and clean-energy companies use it as an immediate, unambiguous signal of ecological values and natural origin. (examples: Patagonia, Allbirds, Grove Collaborative) The challenge is differentiation—nearly every sustainability brand uses green, so typography, illustration style, and specific tone matter more.
- Brand positioning: Forest Green is best suited for brands projecting trustworthiness, reliability, growth. Categories outside this positioning—warning or danger contexts (except for safety signs)—tend to see weaker results.
- Adjacent applications: Beyond primary industries, Forest Green works effectively in financial dashboards, nature and outdoor products, health and wellness UIs—contexts where growth serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Forest Green performs best are those where the audience expects growth. Build brand strategy around this alignment, not against it.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Forest Green? ▾
- The hex code for Forest Green is #228B22. Its RGB values are rgb(34, 139, 34) and its HSL values are hsl(120, 61%, 34%).
- What does Forest Green mean in design? ▾
- Forest green is green at its most earthy and institutional. It evokes dense woodland, military camouflage, and the prestige of old money. It is the dominant green in premium outdoor brands (L.L.Bean, REI), country clubs, and ivy league aesthetics. Its darkness gives it a sophistication that lighter greens lack.
- Is Forest Green WCAG accessible? ▾
- Forest Green (#228B22) passes WCAG AA-large on white with a 4.39:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 39/100.
- What colors go well with Forest Green? ▾
- Forest Green pairs well with its complementary color Purple (#800080). Analogous colors like Chartreuse and Harlequin also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Forest Green used for? ▾
- Forest Green is commonly used for: Financial services and investment platforms; Health, wellness, and organic food brands; Environmental and sustainability organizations; Pharmaceutical and medical products; Agriculture and farming brands.
- What are the CSS and Tailwind values for Forest Green? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #228B22` or `background-color: #228B22`. The CSS custom property is `--color-forest-green: #228B22`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#228B22]` for backgrounds or `text-[#228B22]` for text.