What Color Is Teal?
Teal is a medium-to-dark blue-green. See how it's defined in digital color, how it differs from turquoise and cyan, and how to specify it in a vector logo.
Contents
Teal is a medium-to-dark blue-green. It sits between blue and green on the color wheel and is deeper and less saturated than bright cyan or turquoise. In the standard web color set, the named color teal is defined as hex #008080, which is RGB 0, 128, 128: no red, with green and blue at equal half intensity. Outside that standard definition, "teal" is a loose family name. Brands, paint makers and print systems all apply it to a range of blue-greens, so the word alone does not identify one exact color.
The Short Answer
- Hue family: blue-green, roughly balanced between the two, with some versions leaning bluer or greener.
- Value: medium to dark. Teal is noticeably deeper than aqua or turquoise.
- Saturation: moderate. It is clearly colored but not neon.
- Standard digital reference: the web named color teal, hex #008080 (RGB 0, 128, 128).
- Name origin: the color is named after the common teal, a small dabbling duck whose head has a blue-green patch.
How Teal Differs From Similar Blue-Greens
Teal is often confused with turquoise, cyan and aqua. The web color standard gives each of these a fixed definition, which makes the differences easy to compare. These are the named-color values only. They are not universal definitions of the words.
| Color name | Web hex value | How it reads next to teal |
| Teal | #008080 | Reference: deep, balanced blue-green |
| Dark cyan | #008B8B | Nearly identical to teal, very slightly brighter |
| Turquoise | #40E0D0 | Much lighter and brighter, with a slight green lean |
| Cyan / aqua | #00FFFF | Full-intensity blue-green, far brighter and more electric than teal |
The practical takeaway: when someone asks for "teal" in a logo, they usually mean something darker and more muted than turquoise or cyan. Confirm the exact intent with a visual sample or a numeric value rather than relying on the name.
Why Teal Looks Blue-Green: The Color Construction
On screens, colors are mixed from red, green and blue light. Teal's web definition switches red off entirely and sets green and blue to equal mid-level values. Equal green and blue produce a hue halfway between the two. Holding both at half strength, rather than full, darkens the result. That halving is the main thing separating teal from full cyan, which uses the same balance at maximum intensity.
Shifting that balance moves the color within the teal family. Raising blue relative to green gives a cooler, bluer teal. Raising green gives a greener, more emerald-leaning teal. Adding a little red mutes the color toward a grayish or dusty teal. Many brand "teals" are variations of this kind, so two logos described as teal can look clearly different side by side.
Specifying Teal in a Vector Logo
A logo's teal should be defined as exact values in each color system the brand will use, not as a name. Teal is a color that can shift noticeably between screen and print, because RGB displays can show saturated blue-greens that many CMYK print processes cannot reproduce exactly. A teal picked on screen may print duller or slightly different in hue.
- RGB and hex: for screens, websites, apps and digital files.
- CMYK: for process printing. The correct values depend on the print profile and the printer, so they should come from a deliberate conversion or a printer's proof rather than an automatic one-click conversion.
- Spot color: for jobs where consistency matters, such as signage or packaging, a matched spot ink is often specified. Choose the specific reference from a physical swatch guide, since on-screen previews of spot colors are approximations.
- Documentation: record every value in the brand guidelines so later designers do not re-sample the color from an image.
Inside the vector file, teal is easiest to maintain when it is saved as a named global swatch and applied to the paths. Changing the swatch then updates every shape that uses it. This only works if the logo actually contains vector paths. If the artwork is an embedded raster image, or the file shows only a raster preview, the teal is fixed into pixels and has to be recolored by image editing rather than by changing a swatch. A file extension alone does not confirm which case applies. Open the file and check whether the logo is made of selectable, editable paths.
Building a Palette Around Teal
Teal works as a primary brand color or as an accent. General color-wheel relationships give useful starting points for a supporting palette. These are design conventions, not rules, and every combination should be judged on the actual logo.
- Complementary: warm red-oranges such as coral or terracotta sit opposite teal on the wheel and create strong contrast for accents.
- Analogous: neighboring blues and greens give a calm, cohesive palette with less contrast.
- Tints and shades: lighter and darker versions of the same teal give a one-hue system for backgrounds, hover states and secondary marks.
- Neutrals: white, off-white, warm grays and near-black let teal carry the brand while keeping layouts legible.
Check legibility whenever teal is used with text, including wordmarks and taglines. Mid-value teals can sit close to the threshold for readable contrast against both white and black. Test the specific pairs with a contrast checker before finalizing the palette, and prepare a one-color version of the logo for situations where teal cannot be reproduced.
Using a Teal Logo You Did Not Create
If you are matching or reusing another organization's teal logo, being able to download the file does not grant permission to modify the artwork, change its colors, use its fonts or use the mark itself. Trademark and licensing terms govern those uses separately. Where an official brand guide exists, take the color values from it rather than sampling them from a downloaded image, since sampled values from compressed or rescaled images may not match the official specification.
What This Article Cannot Confirm
No specific brand, logo file or test measurements were supplied for this article. As a result, it does not give CMYK conversions, spot-ink references or contrast ratios for any particular teal. Those values depend on the exact color chosen, the print profile and the substrate. The web color values above are standard definitions. Any brand-specific teal should be confirmed from that brand's own guidelines or from proofs made on the intended output.