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Effective Welsh Lagoon

#26bbdf
Notes

Effective Welsh Lagoon (#26BBDF) 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 (192°, 74%, 51%) 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
#26bbdf
RGB
rgb(38, 187, 223)
HSL
hsl(192, 74%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(192 15% 13%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.4% 0.126 219.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3561 0.7228 0.8587)
HSV
hsv(192, 83%, 87%)
LAB
lab(70.37% -24.87 -28.56)
LCH
lch(70.37% 37.87 228.96)
CMYK
cmyk(83%, 16%, 0%, 13%)

Etymology

Effective
adjective

Latin effectīvus, productive — adjectival suffix -ive. As a color modifier, effective implies a clear-and-purpose-achieving quality where the hue carries the visual register of successful-task-completion design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and useful in usage.

Welsh
modifier

Old English Wælisc, of-Wales. As a color modifier, welsh implies a Cymric-and-slate quality, the visual register of Welsh-Cymric hand-built slate-and-stone-and-Welsh-wool valley-and-mountain hand-spun-and-hand-quarried surfaces under Welsh-Cymric Snowdonia-and-Brecon-Beacons valley light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to celtic and scot 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.

#26bbdf
Original
#a5b6e1
Protanopia
#8da5df
Deuteranopia
#00c7c7
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
2.27:1
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
9.26:1

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
##26BBDF
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3561 0.7228 0.8587)
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.

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