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Polished Odin Lagoon

#36b7d4
Notes

Polished Odin Lagoon (#36B7D4) 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°, 65%, 52%) 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
#36b7d4
RGB
rgb(54, 183, 212)
HSL
hsl(191, 65%, 52%)
HWB
hwb(191 21% 17%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.3% 0.115 216.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3725 0.7077 0.8178)
HSV
hsv(191, 75%, 83%)
LAB
lab(69.04% -24.87 -24.57)
LCH
lch(69.04% 34.96 224.65)
CMYK
cmyk(75%, 14%, 0%, 17%)

Etymology

Polished
adjective

Latin polīre, to polish — past-participle of polish. As a color modifier, polished implies a clear-and-smooth-and-glossy quality where the hue carries the visual register of buffed-and-burnished smooth-finish surface. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to burnished and gleaming in usage.

Odin
modifier

Old Norse Óðinn, all-father-of-the-Aesir. As a color modifier, odin implies a one-eyed-and-raven-and-runic-wisdom quality, the visual register of Norse-all-father-Odin-and-Yggdrasil hand-one-eyed-and-raven-and-runic-wisdom Norse-all-father-Odin-and-Yggdrasil-and-Asgard odin-and-one-eyed-and-raven-and-runic-wisdom surfaces under Norse-all-father-Odin-and-Yggdrasil-and-Asgard Hugin-and-Munin-raven-and-Mimir-well runic-wisdom-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to thor and freya 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.

#36b7d4
Original
#a4b1d6
Protanopia
#8ea2d4
Deuteranopia
#00c1c0
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
2.36:1
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
8.88:1

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
##36B7D4
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3725 0.7077 0.8178)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.115

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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