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Inviting Gloam Lagoon

#20b2d6
Notes

Inviting Gloam Lagoon (#20B2D6) 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 (192°, 74%, 48%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. 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
#20b2d6
RGB
rgb(32, 178, 214)
HSL
hsl(192, 74%, 48%)
HWB
hwb(192 13% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.8% 0.123 220.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3335 0.6879 0.8237)
HSV
hsv(192, 85%, 84%)
LAB
lab(67.28% -23.71 -28.40)
LCH
lch(67.28% 37.00 230.15)
CMYK
cmyk(85%, 17%, 0%, 16%)

Etymology

Inviting
adjective

Latin invītāre, to invite — present-participle of invite. As a color modifier, inviting implies a clear-and-cordial-and-encouraging quality where the hue carries the visual register of warm-inviting-and-encouraging entrance-foyer color tone. Sits at the crisp-and-cheerful end of the grid, parallel to welcoming and hospitable in usage.

Gloam
modifier

Old English glōm, twilight-or-dusk. As a color modifier, gloam implies a twilight-and-half-light-and-fading quality, the visual register of Scottish-Border-and-Hebridean-gloam hand-twilight-and-half-light-and-fading Scottish-Border-and-Hebridean-and-Orkney gloamed-and-twilight-and-fading surfaces under Scottish-Border-and-Hebridean-and-Orkney long-northern-twilight-and-blue-hour gloaming-and-twilight light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to dusk and shade 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.

#20b2d6
Original
#9cadd8
Protanopia
#859dd6
Deuteranopia
#00bebe
Tritanopia
#969696
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
2.50:1
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
8.40:1

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
##20B2D6
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3335 0.6879 0.8237)
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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