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Aligned Blank Lagoon

#21badc
Notes

Aligned Blank Lagoon (#21BADC) 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 (191°, 74%, 50%) 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
#21badc
RGB
rgb(33, 186, 220)
HSL
hsl(191, 74%, 50%)
HWB
hwb(191 13% 14%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.0% 0.126 218.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3487 0.7188 0.8475)
HSV
hsv(191, 85%, 86%)
LAB
lab(69.90% -25.71 -27.66)
LCH
lch(69.90% 37.76 227.09)
CMYK
cmyk(85%, 15%, 0%, 14%)

Etymology

Aligned
adjective

French à-ligne, to-line-up — past-participle of align. As a color modifier, aligned implies a clear-and-axis-coordinated quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-parallel-arranged elements. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to symmetrical and squared in usage.

Blank
modifier

Old French blanc, white-or-empty. As a color modifier, blank implies an unmarked-and-empty-and-pristine quality, the visual register of fresh-page-and-primed-canvas-blank hand-unmarked-and-empty-and-pristine fresh-page-and-primed-canvas-and-white-room blanked-and-unmarked-and-empty-and-pristine surfaces under fresh-page-and-primed-canvas-and-white-room studio-and-stationer-and-gallery untouched-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to void and hollow 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.

#21badc
Original
#a4b4de
Protanopia
#8da3dc
Deuteranopia
#00c5c5
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
2.30:1
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
9.12:1

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
##21BADC
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3487 0.7188 0.8475)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.126

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.

Related Colors

Canvas