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Mapped Seth Lagoon

#20bbd8
Notes

Mapped Seth Lagoon (#20BBD8) 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°, 74%, 49%) 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
#20bbd8
RGB
rgb(32, 187, 216)
HSL
hsl(189, 74%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(189 13% 15%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.1% 0.124 214.8)
HSV
hsv(189, 85%, 85%)
LAB
lab(70.04% -27.58 -25.26)
LCH
lch(70.04% 37.40 222.49)
CMYK
cmyk(85%, 13%, 0%, 15%)

Etymology

Mapped
adjective

Latin mappa, cloth / napkin — past-participle of map. As a color modifier, mapped implies a clear-and-cartographic-and-surveyed quality, the crisp color of Ordnance-Survey-and-USGS scientific-and-cadastral cartographic-and-topographic mapping-and-projection. Sits at the crisp-and-mapped end of the grid, parallel to plotted and surveyed in usage.

Seth
modifier

Egyptian Set, god-of-storms-and-desert-chaos. As a color modifier, seth implies a desert-storm-and-chaos-god quality, the visual register of Egyptian-Seth-and-Ombos-temple hand-desert-storm-and-chaos-god Egyptian-Seth-and-Ombos-temple-and-Osirian-conflict seth-and-desert-storm-and-chaos-god surfaces under Egyptian-Seth-and-Ombos-temple-and-Osirian-conflict Western-Desert-and-storm-cloud red-desert-storm-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to horus and ptah 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.

#20bbd8
Original
#a7b5da
Protanopia
#8fa4d8
Deuteranopia
#00c6c4
Tritanopia
#9c9c9c
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
2.29:1
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
9.16:1

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