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Useful Fast Lagoon

#23afcb
Notes

Useful Fast Lagoon (#23AFCB) 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°, 71%, 47%) 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
#23afcb
RGB
rgb(35, 175, 203)
HSL
hsl(190, 71%, 47%)
HWB
hwb(190 14% 20%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.7% 0.117 215.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3317 0.6763 0.7828)
HSV
hsv(190, 83%, 80%)
LAB
lab(66.00% -25.59 -24.29)
LCH
lch(66.00% 35.29 223.51)
CMYK
cmyk(83%, 14%, 0%, 20%)

Etymology

Useful
adjective

Latin ūsus, use — adjectival suffix -ful. As a color modifier, useful implies a clear-and-purpose-serving quality where the hue carries the visual register of helpful-and-supporting design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and serviceable in usage.

Fast
modifier

Old English fæst, abstinence-from-food. As a color modifier, fast implies a Lenten-and-fasting-and-restraint quality, the visual register of Roman-Catholic-and-Eastern-Orthodox-Fast Lenten-and-Ramadan-fasting religious-fast-and-restraint austere surfaces under fasting-and-restraint austere ecclesiastical light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to lent and vigil 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.

#23afcb
Original
#9ca9cd
Protanopia
#869acb
Deuteranopia
#00b9b8
Tritanopia
#939393
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
2.60:1
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
8.07:1

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
##23AFCB
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3317 0.6763 0.7828)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.117

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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