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Tidy Hard Lagoon

#12b2d0
Notes

Tidy Hard Lagoon (#12B2D0) 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°, 84%, 44%) 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
#12b2d0
RGB
rgb(18, 178, 208)
HSL
hsl(189, 84%, 44%)
HWB
hwb(189 7% 18%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.4% 0.123 215.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3209 0.6877 0.8017)
HSV
hsv(189, 91%, 82%)
LAB
lab(66.92% -26.49 -25.67)
LCH
lch(66.92% 36.89 224.10)
CMYK
cmyk(91%, 14%, 0%, 18%)

Etymology

Tidy
adjective

Old English tidig, timely — drifted in modern English to mean neat, orderly. Used as a color modifier for hues that read as composed and unfussy. Tidy beige, tidy gray: moderate saturation combined with optical neatness. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside plain and modest.

Hard
modifier

Old English heard, firm / hard. As a color modifier, hard implies a stone-and-iron-and-bone quality, the visual register of hand-hard-and-firm stone-and-iron-and-bone hard-and-firm-and-resistant tactile-hardness-and-firmness surfaces under hard-and-firm tactile-hardness light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to forged and hewn 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.

#12b2d0
Original
#9eacd2
Protanopia
#879cd0
Deuteranopia
#00bdbb
Tritanopia
#929292
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
2.53:1
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
8.30:1

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
##12B2D0
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3209 0.6877 0.8017)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.123

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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