Tints & Shades
50
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
Scale from white (50) through Slate Teal (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #5F8787
- RGB
- rgb(95, 135, 135)
- HSL
- hsl(180, 17%, 45%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.594 0.044 196)
- CMYK
- cmyk(30%, 0%, 0%, 47%)
--color-slate-tealbg-[#5F8787]Accessibility
Score: 39/100On White (#FFF)
3.96:1
On Black (#000)
5.3:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
3.63:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #5F8787
color: #5F8787
bg-[#5F8787] text-[#000000]
border-left: 4px solid #5F8787
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. 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 Slate 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
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
Slate Teal is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (5.30:1). Avoid white text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #5F8787;Text
color: #5F8787;Border
border: 2px solid #5F8787;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #5F878740;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #5F8787, #8eb7b7);Tailwind-style
--color-slate-teal: #5F8787;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Slate Teal without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#5F8787]Text
text-[#5F8787]Border
border-[#5F8787]Ring
ring-[#5F8787]Fill
fill-[#5F8787]From (gradient)
from-[#5F8787]Via (gradient)
via-[#5F8787]To (gradient)
to-[#5F8787]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Slate Teal design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-slate-teal: #5F8787;
--color-slate-teal-rgb: 95, 135, 135;
--color-slate-teal-hsl: 180, 17%, 45%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-slate-teal: #5F8787; $color-slate-teal-rgb: 95, 135, 135; $color-slate-teal-hsl: 180, 17%, 45%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'slate-teal': '#5F8787',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-slate-teal: #5F8787;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"slate-teal": {
"value": "#5F8787",
"type": "color",
"description": "Slate Teal — #5F8787"
}
}More teal colors
View all →What Does Slate Teal Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Slate Teal (#5F8787) 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 Slate Teal a reliable vehicle for balance in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on teal-family tones to project modern sophistication and trustworthiness—values that Slate Teal communicates in a medium key.
- At 17% saturation, Slate 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.
- Slate Teal's medium lightness (45%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies clarity, innovation, balance, and modern sophistication at its most direct.
Slate Teal will feel fresh for a long time because it's built on permanent values—clarity, balance, and intelligence—not trend.
How to Use Slate Teal in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Design systems built around Slate Teal tend to feel contemporary, clean, and purposeful. It pairs naturally with white, dark charcoal, and almost any warm neutral, making it an extremely designer-friendly color to build a palette around.
- 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: Slate Teal's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Slate 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.
- Slate Teal creates strong legibility with black text overlays (5.3:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
- Typography: Slate Teal as text requires a dark background; its 45% lightness means it provides 4.0:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
Slate Teal will feel fresh for a long time because it's built on permanent values—clarity, balance, and intelligence—not trend.
Slate Teal Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Slate Teal (#5F8787) reaches 5.30:1 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: 21.5%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 3.96:1 — AA (large text only)
- As text on black (#000000): 5.30:1 — AA ✓
- Best text color on Slate Teal background: Black (#000000) at 5.30:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 21.5% — 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
- Slate 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.
Slate Teal's WCAG profile makes it a compliant choice for most text applications.
Slate Teal in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Across industry research, teal-family tones consistently outperform competitors in categories built on clarity, innovation, balance, and modern sophistication. Slate Teal is a medium expression of this advantage—best positioned in Healthcare Technology and adjacent markets.
- 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: Slate 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, Slate Teal works effectively in professional services branding, wellness apps, financial dashboards—contexts where sophistication serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
Slate Teal earns its strongest ROI in industries where trust and recognition compound over time: Healthcare Technology, SaaS & B2B Software, Financial Technology. Use it to build the kind of brand recognition that decades reinforce.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Slate Teal? ▾
- The hex code for Slate Teal is #5F8787. Its RGB values are rgb(95, 135, 135) and its HSL values are hsl(180, 17%, 45%).
- What does Slate 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. 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 Slate Teal WCAG accessible? ▾
- Slate Teal (#5F8787) passes WCAG AA-large on white with a 3.96:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 39/100.
- What colors go well with Slate Teal? ▾
- Slate Teal 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 Slate Teal used for? ▾
- Slate 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 Slate Teal? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #5F8787` or `background-color: #5F8787`. The CSS custom property is `--color-slate-teal: #5F8787`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#5F8787]` for backgrounds or `text-[#5F8787]` for text.