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Pleasant Ergo Lagoon

#22bddc
Notes

Pleasant Ergo Lagoon (#22BDDC) 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 (190°, 73%, 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
#22bddc
RGB
rgb(34, 189, 220)
HSL
hsl(190, 73%, 50%)
HWB
hwb(190 13% 14%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.7% 0.125 215.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3550 0.7304 0.8482)
HSV
hsv(190, 85%, 86%)
LAB
lab(70.80% -27.14 -26.27)
LCH
lch(70.80% 37.77 224.07)
CMYK
cmyk(85%, 14%, 0%, 14%)

Etymology

Pleasant
adjective

From the French plaisant, pleasing — used as a color modifier since the fifteenth century for hues that read as agreeable, the kind of color that wears well over a long viewing without becoming demanding or fatiguing. Pleasant green, pleasant rose: moderate saturation combined with optical comfort. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside easy and calm.

Ergo
modifier

Latin ergo, therefore-or-thus. As a color modifier, ergo implies a Latin-logical-and-cogito-ergo-sum quality, the visual register of Cartesian-cogito-ergo-sum hand-Latin-logical-and-cogito-ergo-sum Cartesian-cogito-ergo-sum-and-Scholastic-syllogism ergo-and-Latin-logical-and-cogito-ergo-sum surfaces under Cartesian-cogito-ergo-sum-and-Scholastic-syllogism Sorbonne-Scholastic-and-Cartesian-meditation logical-deduction-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to ipse and opus 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.

#22bddc
Original
#a8b7de
Protanopia
#90a6dc
Deuteranopia
#00c8c7
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
2.24:1
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
9.38:1

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
##22BDDC
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3550 0.7304 0.8482)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.125

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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