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Orderly Drear Lagoon

#03b5d4
Notes

Orderly Drear Lagoon (#03B5D4) is a true cyan with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (189°, 97%, 42%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#03b5d4
RGB
rgb(3, 181, 212)
HSL
hsl(189, 97%, 42%)
HWB
hwb(189 1% 17%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.2% 0.126 215.9)
HSV
hsv(189, 99%, 83%)
LAB
lab(67.89% -27.15 -26.39)
LCH
lch(67.89% 37.86 224.18)
CMYK
cmyk(99%, 15%, 0%, 17%)

Etymology

Orderly
adjective

Latin ōrdō, order — adjectival suffix -ly. As a color modifier, orderly implies a clear-and-arranged-and-organized quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-ordered-and-classified placement. Sits at the crisp-and-orderly end of the grid, parallel to methodical and organized in usage.

Drear
modifier

Old English drēor, gore-and-sorrow. As a color modifier, drear implies a bleak-and-cheerless-and-sorrowful quality, the visual register of Brontë-moorland-and-Hardy-heath-drear hand-bleak-and-cheerless-and-sorrowful Brontë-moorland-and-Hardy-heath-and-Wuthering drear-and-bleak-and-cheerless-and-sorrowful surfaces under Brontë-moorland-and-Hardy-heath-and-Wuthering rain-swept-and-low-cloud-and-empty-vista Yorkshire-and-Wessex-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to bleak and gloom in usage.

Lagoon
noun

A shallow body of saltwater partially or fully enclosed by a barrier — coral atoll lagoons in the Pacific, Venice's Laguna Veneta, the Florida Keys' backcountry. The color refers to the average reflectance of a calm tropical lagoon at midday: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical clarity of shallow water over white sand. Brighter than reef, cooler than aquamarine, with the postcard weight of a Pacific atoll seen from above.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

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Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#03b5d4
Original
#a0afd6
Protanopia
#889ed4
Deuteranopia
#00c0bf
Tritanopia
#919191
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon White
2.45:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
8.56:1

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