Tints & Shades
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Scale from white (50) through Kelly Green (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #4CBB17
- RGB
- rgb(76, 187, 23)
- HSL
- hsl(101, 78%, 41%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.7 0.212 139)
- CMYK
- cmyk(59%, 0%, 88%, 27%)
--color-kelly-greenbg-[#4CBB17]Accessibility
Score: 48/100On White (#FFF)
2.49:1
On Black (#000)
8.43:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
2.29:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #4CBB17
color: #4CBB17
bg-[#4CBB17] text-[#000000]
border-left: 4px solid #4CBB17
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Wisteria
#C9A0DC
Split-Complementary
Similar Colors
Color Meaning & Psychology
Green occupies the center of the visible spectrum where the eye is most sensitive, making it the easiest color to process — literally restful for the eye. Green's associations with nature, growth, and fresh produce are deeply biological, rooted in the evolutionary advantage of finding food. In finance, "going green" means profit. In design, green signals health, sustainability, and natural ingredients. Darker greens evoke prestige and reliability; lighter greens feel fresh and energetic; blue-greens feel sophisticated and trustworthy. Green is uniquely cross-cultural in positive associations, though it represents environmental risk in some financial contexts. 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 Kelly 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
Fails AA Large
3:1 minimum required
UI Components
Check contrast
3:1 for non-text UI
Kelly Green is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (8.43:1). Avoid white text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #4CBB17;Text
color: #4CBB17;Border
border: 2px solid #4CBB17;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #4CBB1740;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #4CBB17, #83ee51);Tailwind-style
--color-kelly-green: #4CBB17;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Kelly Green without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#4CBB17]Text
text-[#4CBB17]Border
border-[#4CBB17]Ring
ring-[#4CBB17]Fill
fill-[#4CBB17]From (gradient)
from-[#4CBB17]Via (gradient)
via-[#4CBB17]To (gradient)
to-[#4CBB17]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Kelly Green design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-kelly-green: #4CBB17;
--color-kelly-green-rgb: 76, 187, 23;
--color-kelly-green-hsl: 101, 78%, 41%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-kelly-green: #4CBB17; $color-kelly-green-rgb: 76, 187, 23; $color-kelly-green-hsl: 101, 78%, 41%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'kelly-green': '#4CBB17',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-kelly-green: #4CBB17;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"kelly-green": {
"value": "#4CBB17",
"type": "color",
"description": "Kelly Green — #4CBB17"
}
}More green colors
View all →What Does Kelly Green Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Color researchers consistently find that green environments lower cortisol levels and increase feelings of calm and restorative focus. Kelly Green carries this quality into designed spaces—projecting growth through its medium character at 41% lightness.
- Green carries multiple Western associations: nature and the environment, financial success and prosperity (money in the US), health and wellness, and the "go" signal in traffic systems. Dark greens suggest wealth and tradition; bright greens signal vitality and environmental consciousness.
- In Chinese culture, green is associated with growth, harmony, and fertility. In Islam, green holds sacred significance as the color of paradise and the Prophet. In Japan, green (midori) represents youth, freshness, and eternal life.
- Kelly Green's medium lightness (41%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies growth, nature, health, and balance at its most direct.
- At 78% saturation, Kelly Green reads as moderately saturated—neither overwhelming nor passive, landing in the growth, nature, health, and balance zone with measured confidence.
The enduring power of Kelly Green is that it never needs to explain itself—growth, health, and permission are universally understood.
How to Use Kelly Green in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
The design applications of Kelly Green span from digital UI states to full brand identity systems. Its moderately saturated saturation (78%) means it reads as a high-energy presence that demands attention in any composition in both contexts—strong accents, headers, and primary brand applications where visual authority is required in background uses, more active as an accent.
- UI components: success states, confirmation messages, positive trends—Kelly Green performs reliably in all these roles with its medium tonal character.
- Brand & identity: success states, approval indicators, sustainability branding—contexts where Kelly Green's moderately saturated quality creates the right register.
- Typography: Kelly Green as text requires a dark background; its 41% lightness means it provides 2.5:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
- Kelly Green creates strong legibility with black text overlays (8.4:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
- Proportional use: Kelly Green's moderately saturated saturation (78%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.
The enduring power of Kelly Green is that it never needs to explain itself—growth, health, and permission are universally understood.
Kelly Green Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Kelly Green (#4CBB17) achieves a 8.43:1 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: 37.1%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 2.49:1 — Fail
- As text on black (#000000): 8.43:1 — AAA ✓
- Best text color on Kelly Green background: Black (#000000) at 8.43:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 37.1% — 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
- Kelly Green qualifies for all text sizes including small body copy (AAA).
Kelly Green's WCAG profile makes it a compliant choice for most text applications.
Kelly Green in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Across industry research, green-family tones consistently outperform competitors in categories built on growth, nature, health, and balance. Kelly Green is a medium expression of this advantage—best positioned in Healthcare & Wellness and adjacent markets.
- 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: Pela Case, Grove Collaborative, Allbirds) The challenge is differentiation—nearly every sustainability brand uses green, so typography, illustration style, and specific tone matter more.
- Brand positioning: Kelly Green is best suited for brands projecting health, sustainability, growth. Categories outside this positioning—warning or danger contexts (except for safety signs)—tend to see weaker results.
- Adjacent applications: Beyond primary industries, Kelly Green works effectively in success states, approval indicators, sustainability branding—contexts where nature serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
Kelly Green earns its strongest ROI in industries where trust and recognition compound over time: Healthcare & Wellness, Finance & Banking, Sustainability & Organic. Use it to build the kind of brand recognition that decades reinforce.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Kelly Green? ▾
- The hex code for Kelly Green is #4CBB17. Its RGB values are rgb(76, 187, 23) and its HSL values are hsl(101, 78%, 41%).
- What does Kelly Green mean in design? ▾
- Green occupies the center of the visible spectrum where the eye is most sensitive, making it the easiest color to process — literally restful for the eye. Green's associations with nature, growth, and fresh produce are deeply biological, rooted in the evolutionary advantage of finding food. In finance, "going green" means profit. In design, green signals health, sustainability, and natural ingredients. Darker greens evoke prestige and reliability; lighter greens feel fresh and energetic; blue-greens feel sophisticated and trustworthy. Green is uniquely cross-cultural in positive associations, though it represents environmental risk in some financial contexts. Its deeper, richer tone gives it gravitas and sophistication, making it well-suited for primary brand colors, typography, and contexts where authority matters.
- Is Kelly Green WCAG accessible? ▾
- Kelly Green (#4CBB17) does not pass WCAG AA on white (2.49:1 ratio). Use it on dark backgrounds where it achieves 8.43:1. Its overall accessibility score is 48/100.
- What colors go well with Kelly Green? ▾
- Kelly Green pairs well with its complementary color Wisteria (#C9A0DC). Analogous colors like Army Green and Green Yellow also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Kelly Green used for? ▾
- Kelly 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 Kelly Green? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #4CBB17` or `background-color: #4CBB17`. The CSS custom property is `--color-kelly-green: #4CBB17`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#4CBB17]` for backgrounds or `text-[#4CBB17]` for text.