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Printed Slick Lagoon

#04a9ca
Notes

Printed Slick Lagoon (#04A9CA) 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 (190°, 96%, 40%) 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
#04a9ca
RGB
rgb(4, 169, 202)
HSL
hsl(190, 96%, 40%)
HWB
hwb(190 2% 21%)
OKLCH
oklch(67.9% 0.122 218.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2963 0.6528 0.7776)
HSV
hsv(190, 98%, 79%)
LAB
lab(63.89% -24.43 -27.01)
LCH
lch(63.89% 36.42 227.87)
CMYK
cmyk(98%, 16%, 0%, 21%)

Etymology

Printed
adjective

Latin premere, to press — past-participle of print. As a color modifier, printed implies a clear-and-impressed-and-multiplied quality, the crisp color of Marimekko-and-Liberty-of-London hand-or-machine-printed textile-and-paper pattern-design. Sits at the crisp-and-printed end of the grid, parallel to stamped and etched in usage.

Slick
modifier

Old Norse slíkr, slick / smooth. As a color modifier, slick implies a wet-and-glossy quality, the visual register of oil-and-water-slick wet-and-glossy oil-and-water-slick reflective-surface slick-and-glossy-and-reflective surfaces under wet-oil-and-water-slick reflective-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to sleek and gloss 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

Click any swatch to explore

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.

#04a9ca
Original
#94a4cc
Protanopia
#7e94ca
Deuteranopia
#00b4b4
Tritanopia
#888888
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
2.79:1
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
7.53:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##04A9CA
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2963 0.6528 0.7776)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.122

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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