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Welcoming Cast Lagoon

#2ec3de
Notes

Welcoming Cast Lagoon (#2EC3DE) 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°, 73%, 53%) 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
#2ec3de
RGB
rgb(46, 195, 222)
HSL
hsl(189, 73%, 53%)
HWB
hwb(189 18% 13%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.4% 0.123 213.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3801 0.7538 0.8570)
HSV
hsv(189, 79%, 87%)
LAB
lab(72.81% -28.50 -24.26)
LCH
lch(72.81% 37.43 220.41)
CMYK
cmyk(79%, 12%, 0%, 13%)

Etymology

Welcoming
adjective

Old English wel-cuman, well-coming — present-participle of welcome. As a color modifier, welcoming implies a clear-and-inviting-and-warm quality where the hue carries the visual register of cordial-and-hospitable color-tone. Sits at the crisp-and-cheerful end of the grid, parallel to hospitable and inviting in usage.

Cast
modifier

Old Norse kasta, to-throw / to-mold. As a color modifier, cast implies a poured-metal-and-shaped quality, the visual register of foundry-cast-iron-and-bronze hand-poured-and-cooled iron-and-bronze-and-tin foundry-cast-and-shaped surfaces under foundry-cast-iron-and-bronze workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to forged and hewn 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.

#2ec3de
Original
#afbce0
Protanopia
#98abde
Deuteranopia
#00cdcb
Tritanopia
#a5a5a5
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
2.10:1
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
9.98:1

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
##2EC3DE
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3801 0.7538 0.8570)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.123

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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