Tints & Shades
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Scale from white (50) through Muted Teal (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #5F7A76
- RGB
- rgb(95, 122, 118)
- HSL
- hsl(171, 12%, 43%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.557 0.032 185)
- CMYK
- cmyk(22%, 0%, 3%, 52%)
--color-muted-tealbg-[#5F7A76]Accessibility
Score: 54/100On White (#FFF)
4.63:1
On Black (#000)
4.53:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
4.25:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #5F7A76
color: #5F7A76
bg-[#5F7A76] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #5F7A76
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Light Pink
#FFB6C1
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. Its near-neutral saturation gives it a versatile, subdued character that works as a sophisticated accent without dominating a composition.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Muted Teal 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
Passes 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
Muted Teal is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (4.63:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #5F7A76;Text
color: #5F7A76;Border
border: 2px solid #5F7A76;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #5F7A7640;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #5F7A76, #8da9a5);Tailwind-style
--color-muted-teal: #5F7A76;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Muted Teal without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#5F7A76]Text
text-[#5F7A76]Border
border-[#5F7A76]Ring
ring-[#5F7A76]Fill
fill-[#5F7A76]From (gradient)
from-[#5F7A76]Via (gradient)
via-[#5F7A76]To (gradient)
to-[#5F7A76]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Muted Teal design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-muted-teal: #5F7A76;
--color-muted-teal-rgb: 95, 122, 118;
--color-muted-teal-hsl: 171, 12%, 43%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-muted-teal: #5F7A76; $color-muted-teal-rgb: 95, 122, 118; $color-muted-teal-hsl: 171, 12%, 43%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'muted-teal': '#5F7A76',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-muted-teal: #5F7A76;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"muted-teal": {
"value": "#5F7A76",
"type": "color",
"description": "Muted Teal — #5F7A76"
}
}More teal colors
View all →What Does Muted Teal Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Color psychology researchers note that blue-green tones like Muted Teal elicit a particularly broad range of positive associations across different demographic groups. This cross-market appeal—simultaneously sophisticated and accessible—is what makes it project innovation so reliably.
- Across color psychology research, teal consistently tests high for "innovation" associations, making Muted Teal a reliable vehicle for innovation in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on teal-family tones to project modern sophistication and trustworthiness—values that Muted Teal communicates in a medium key.
- At 12% saturation, Muted Teal reads as muted—Muted teals (slate teal, dusty aqua) create sophisticated, timeless palettes—popular in interior design and brand identities that want to feel current without chasing trends.
- Muted Teal's medium lightness (43%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies clarity, innovation, balance, and modern sophistication at its most direct.
The best use of Muted Teal is unapologetic. When it's the primary color, it earns its position through clarity and confidence.
How to Use Muted Teal in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
The appeal of Muted Teal 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.
- 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: Muted Teal's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Muted Teal's muted quality means it scales well across proportions—from full-bleed backgrounds to single-pixel borders—making it an unusually versatile palette component.
- As a dark tone, Muted Teal creates maximum contrast with white and light neutrals—excellent for creating premium dark-mode sections, bold headers, and high-drama brand moments
- Typography: Muted Teal works as a background behind white text but requires careful sizing—test at intended heading and body sizes before finalizing.
The best use of Muted Teal is unapologetic. When it's the primary color, it earns its position through clarity and confidence.
Muted Teal Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Muted Teal (#5F7A76) reaches 4.63:1 contrast with white 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: 17.7%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 4.63:1 — AA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 4.53:1 — AA ✓
- Best text color on Muted Teal background: White (#FFFFFF) at 4.63:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 17.7% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Muted Teal 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.
For production use, test Muted Teal against your specific background colors rather than assuming #FFFFFF or #000000 performance translates. Surrounding colors alter perceived contrast.
Muted Teal in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Muted Teal (#5F7A76) is most at home in industries where clarity, innovation, balance, and modern sophistication are key brand values. Its medium quality makes it particularly effective in Healthcare Technology contexts, where the muted saturation signals balance 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: 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: Muted Teal 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, Muted Teal works effectively in professional services branding, wellness apps, financial dashboards—contexts where balance serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Muted Teal performs best are those where the audience expects balance. Build brand strategy around this alignment, not against it.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Muted Teal? ▾
- The hex code for Muted Teal is #5F7A76. Its RGB values are rgb(95, 122, 118) and its HSL values are hsl(171, 12%, 43%).
- What does Muted Teal 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 near-neutral saturation gives it a versatile, subdued character that works as a sophisticated accent without dominating a composition.
- Is Muted Teal WCAG accessible? ▾
- Muted Teal (#5F7A76) passes WCAG AA on white with a 4.63:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 54/100.
- What colors go well with Muted Teal? ▾
- Muted Teal pairs well with its complementary color Light Pink (#FFB6C1). Analogous colors like Malachite and Shamrock also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Muted Teal used for? ▾
- Muted Teal 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 Muted Teal? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #5F7A76` or `background-color: #5F7A76`. The CSS custom property is `--color-muted-teal: #5F7A76`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#5F7A76]` for backgrounds or `text-[#5F7A76]` for text.