Qing#00FFA6, a cool-leaning vivid teal
Qing in RGB, HSL, OKLCH & more
Ready to ship: every line pastes straight into your codebase, and the whole file copies at once.
ART is Rhapsody's perceptual model. How ART works
Why is it called Qing?
Qing's meaning, origin, and pronunciation, with sources.
Anchor: A30 · one of the 72 anchor hues of ART
Origin: Mandarin Chinese, with three thousand years of classical Chinese behind it
Meaning: One word that runs from green to blue to dark, depending on what it describes
Word: 青 (Mandarin Chinese)
"ching," said high and even — Mandarin first tone · pinyin qīng · /tɕʰíŋ/
The character 青, traditionally read as a picture of a budding plant → qīng, the color of growing things → and, spreading outward from there, its blue and its dark senses.
One word covers qīngshān, green mountains; qīngtiān, the blue sky; and qīngsī, black hair. Qīngchūn, "green spring," means youth.
Linguists call a category like this a "grue" term: one word where English uses two, green and blue. It isn't a failure to tell them apart. It is a different and perfectly coherent way of dividing up color, built around the living landscape rather than the rainbow. In the Chinese five-element tradition, qīng is the color of the East and of spring, embodied in the Azure Dragon of the constellations.
Classical Chinese ran on qīng. Modern Mandarin has largely split the territory between lǜ, green, and lán, blue. A color category dividing in two inside recorded literary history. And lán is the indigo plant, from the proverb every Chinese schoolchild knows: qing comes from indigo, yet surpasses it, the student outdoing the master.
Bottéro, "Chinese qīng 青"; Language Log (Mair) on the lán/lǜ split; Wikipedia s.v. Azure Dragon; Xunzi (the proverb). Dictionary + scholarly sources; no native-speaker review. Audio: synthesized (zh_CN-huayan-medium).
Shades of Qing, lighter and darker
For hover states, washed backgrounds, and dark surfaces that still read as #00FFA6. 13 steps, spaced evenly by eye, with the color itself sitting at its natural depth, qing-300.
Tints (light surfaces; dark text passes on every one)
Midtones (the color at full strength, for brand & accent work)
Shades (dark surfaces; light text passes on every one)
Most tools mix. Rhapsody measures.
Paste any color. The whole system comes back, contrast-checked before you see it.
The window on the right was generated from #00FFA6, like this whole page.
Is Qing accessible? Contrast with white & black
Strong contrast makes your work readable by everyone, and meets the WCAG standard accessibility law points at. AA is the floor; AAA is the tier worth aiming for in body text. Black text on #00FFA6 clears WCAG AAA. Every strip below is one surface, and the marks are the steps that reach AAA on it.
Rows are text, columns are background · 68 of 210 pairings reach WCAG 2.2 AAA, shown here.
Ship the audit, not screenshots.
Run #00FFA6 against the colors you actually ship, every pairing and any target, and export it: exact ratios, the AA tier, APCA, in one file.
The audit on the right was calibrated from #00FFA6, like this whole page.
Qing in CMYK: one value for files, one per press
This color shifts further than a press run can hold, so expect a visible difference. The pairs below show where each standard lands.
In CMYK, #00FFA6 is . That is the value design tools and file formats use when no press is involved.
On press (what each standard prints)
shifts ΔE00 15.5, 6.2× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 15.7, 6.3× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 15.8, 6.3× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 15.3, 6.1× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 14.1, 5.7× the 2.5 a run varies by
Press values computed through the ICC characterization data each standard proofs against. Each CMYK above is the closest that standard can get.
No surprises at the printer.
Run any color through the major press standards: FOGRA51, GRACoL, Japan Color, FOGRA39. It's coming soon. Create a free account and you'll get a note the moment it's live.
The strip shows this page's tints and shades on screen, then through a standard GRACoL 2013 conversion.
Colors similar to Qing
One word that runs from green to blue to dark, depending on what it describes
Here are other colors similar to Qing along with accessible text pairings and whether or not they're print-safe. Explore The Teals
| Bright Sea Green | Bright Sea Green | #05FFA6 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Medium Spring Green | Medium Spring Green | #00FA9A | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Greenish Turquoise | Greenish Turquoise | #00FBB0 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Light Green Blue | Light Green Blue | #56FCA2 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Greenish Cyan | Greenish Cyan | #2AFEB7 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Yaxha | Yaxha | #00FFBC | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Aqua Green | Aqua Green | #12E193 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
Colors that go with Qing
The complementary color, straight across the wheel, is a warm-leaning vivid purple #DF5EE3. Rhapsody's pick is the split complement, just to one side of it, a livelier pair.
The accent is for the moments that need attention, the harmony for the ones that need calm; the neutral carries the text and surfaces in between.
Take Qing with you
The work on this page doesn't stay here. Save a card and the color arrives in your file, your deck or your board already decided.
Your system is already built.
Rhapsody built it before you even asked: the scale, the neutrals, the utilities, every pairing calibrated.
This page's whole theme is built from one color. Palette does the same for yours: every step calibrated, every pairing checked, press included.
Every color on this page was calibrated, not mixed.
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