Tints & Shades
50
100
200
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500
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800
900
Scale from white (50) through Glacier (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #80B3C4
- RGB
- rgb(128, 179, 196)
- HSL
- hsl(195, 37%, 64%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.737 0.059 221)
- CMYK
- cmyk(35%, 9%, 0%, 23%)
--color-glacierbg-[#80B3C4]Accessibility
Score: 48/100On White (#FFF)
2.29:1
On Black (#000)
9.16:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
2.1:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #80B3C4
color: #80B3C4
bg-[#80B3C4] text-[#000000]
border-left: 4px solid #80B3C4
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Papaya
#FF9470
Split-Complementary
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. At medium lightness, it is the most versatile tone of this hue family — readable as text on light backgrounds, yet vibrant enough as a visual accent.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Glacier 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
Fails AA Large
3:1 minimum required
UI Components
Check contrast
3:1 for non-text UI
Glacier is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (9.16:1). Avoid white text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #80B3C4;Text
color: #80B3C4;Border
border: 2px solid #80B3C4;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #80B3C440;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #80B3C4, #b1e5f7);Tailwind-style
--color-glacier: #80B3C4;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Glacier without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#80B3C4]Text
text-[#80B3C4]Border
border-[#80B3C4]Ring
ring-[#80B3C4]Fill
fill-[#80B3C4]From (gradient)
from-[#80B3C4]Via (gradient)
via-[#80B3C4]To (gradient)
to-[#80B3C4]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Glacier design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-glacier: #80B3C4;
--color-glacier-rgb: 128, 179, 196;
--color-glacier-hsl: 195, 37%, 64%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-glacier: #80B3C4; $color-glacier-rgb: 128, 179, 196; $color-glacier-hsl: 195, 37%, 64%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'glacier': '#80B3C4',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-glacier: #80B3C4;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"glacier": {
"value": "#80B3C4",
"type": "color",
"description": "Glacier — #80B3C4"
}
}More teal colors
View all →What Does Glacier Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Glacier (#80B3C4) 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.
- Teal occupies the visual and psychological space between blue's trust and green's vitality—inheriting credibility from the former and freshness from the latter. It's become a defining color of modern healthcare tech and SaaS design for exactly this balance.
- In Persian and Islamic design traditions, teal and turquoise hold deep spiritual significance—associated with protection, sky, and water. Persian turquoise ceramics are among the most celebrated in the world. In many Central Asian cultures, the color connects heaven and earth.
- Glacier's mid-tone lightness (64%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies clarity, innovation, balance, and modern sophistication at its most direct.
- At 37% saturation, Glacier reads as subdued—neither overwhelming nor passive, landing in the clarity, innovation, balance, and modern sophistication zone with measured confidence.
The best use of Glacier is unapologetic. When it's the primary color, it earns its position through clarity and confidence.
How to Use Glacier in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
The appeal of Glacier in design is its specificity without limitation. Unlike blue (everyone) or purple (everyone creative), teal stakes out a particular position—modern, balanced, health-forward—without cutting off audience breadth.
- UI components: primary brand color, action states, informational elements—Glacier performs reliably in all these roles with its mid-tone tonal character.
- Brand & identity: health tech platforms, modern SaaS UIs, financial dashboards—contexts where Glacier's subdued quality creates the right register.
- Typography: Glacier as text requires a dark background; its 64% lightness means it provides 2.3:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
- Glacier creates strong legibility with black text overlays (9.2:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
- Proportional use: Glacier's subdued quality means it scales well across proportions—from full-bleed backgrounds to single-pixel borders—making it an unusually versatile palette component.
The best use of Glacier is unapologetic. When it's the primary color, it earns its position through clarity and confidence.
Glacier Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Glacier (#80B3C4) achieves a 9.16:1 contrast ratio with black text, surpassing the WCAG 2.1 AAA threshold of 7:1. This exceptional contrast qualifies it for body text, UI components at any size, and all accessibility-sensitive interface contexts. Relative luminance: 40.8%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 2.29:1 — Fail
- As text on black (#000000): 9.16:1 — AAA ✓
- Best text color on Glacier background: Black (#000000) at 9.16:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 40.8% — above-median luminance—it reads as a light to mid-tone background, compatible with dark text while retaining color personality
- Glacier qualifies for all text sizes including small body copy (AAA).
- 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.
For production use, test Glacier against your specific background colors rather than assuming #FFFFFF or #000000 performance translates. Surrounding colors alter perceived contrast.
Glacier in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Glacier (#80B3C4) is most at home in industries where clarity, innovation, balance, and modern sophistication are key brand values. Its mid-tone quality makes it particularly effective in Healthcare Technology contexts, where the subdued saturation signals sophistication at exactly the right register.
- 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: Notion, Slack, 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: Notion, Slack, Salesforce) Works best paired with clean white and dark charcoal for maximum fintech modernity.
- Brand positioning: Glacier is best suited for brands projecting modern sophistication, trustworthiness, balance. Categories outside this positioning—traditional—tend to see weaker results.
- Adjacent applications: Beyond primary industries, Glacier works effectively in professional services branding, wellness apps, financial dashboards—contexts where sophistication serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Glacier performs best are those where the audience expects sophistication. Build brand strategy around this alignment, not against it.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Glacier? ▾
- The hex code for Glacier is #80B3C4. Its RGB values are rgb(128, 179, 196) and its HSL values are hsl(195, 37%, 64%).
- What does Glacier 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. At medium lightness, it is the most versatile tone of this hue family — readable as text on light backgrounds, yet vibrant enough as a visual accent.
- Is Glacier WCAG accessible? ▾
- Glacier (#80B3C4) does not pass WCAG AA on white (2.29:1 ratio). Use it on dark backgrounds where it achieves 9.16:1. Its overall accessibility score is 48/100.
- What colors go well with Glacier? ▾
- Glacier pairs well with its complementary color Papaya (#FF9470). Analogous colors like Opal and Iron Gray also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Glacier used for? ▾
- Glacier 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 Glacier? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #80B3C4` or `background-color: #80B3C4`. The CSS custom property is `--color-glacier: #80B3C4`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#80B3C4]` for backgrounds or `text-[#80B3C4]` for text.