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Frank Atlas Lagoon

#20bdd8
Notes

Frank Atlas Lagoon (#20BDD8) 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
#20bdd8
RGB
rgb(32, 189, 216)
HSL
hsl(189, 74%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(189 13% 15%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.6% 0.124 213.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3529 0.7304 0.8336)
HSV
hsv(189, 85%, 85%)
LAB
lab(70.63% -28.57 -24.35)
LCH
lch(70.63% 37.54 220.44)
CMYK
cmyk(85%, 12%, 0%, 15%)

Etymology

Frank
adjective

From the Old French franc, free, sincere — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as direct and unhedged. Frank red, frank brown: moderate-to-high saturation combined with optical directness. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside direct and honest.

Atlas
modifier

Greek Ἄτλας, Titan-bearing-the-heavens. As a color modifier, atlas implies a Titan-bearing-heaven-and-globe-bearer quality, the visual register of Farnese-Atlas-and-Titanomachy-Atlas hand-Titan-bearing-heaven-and-globe-bearer Farnese-Atlas-and-Titanomachy-Atlas-and-Hellenistic-marble atlas-and-Titan-bearing-heaven surfaces under Farnese-Atlas-and-Titanomachy-Atlas-and-Hellenistic-marble Naples-museum-and-celestial-globe globe-bearer-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to titan and zeus 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.

#20bdd8
Original
#a9b6da
Protanopia
#92a6d8
Deuteranopia
#00c7c5
Tritanopia
#9e9e9e
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
2.25:1
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
9.33:1

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
##20BDD8
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3529 0.7304 0.8336)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.124

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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