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Welcoming Lull Lagoon

#38b6d8
Notes

Welcoming Lull Lagoon (#38B6D8) 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 (193°, 67%, 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
#38b6d8
RGB
rgb(56, 182, 216)
HSL
hsl(193, 67%, 53%)
HWB
hwb(193 22% 15%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.3% 0.117 220.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3743 0.7039 0.8322)
HSV
hsv(193, 74%, 85%)
LAB
lab(68.93% -22.85 -26.92)
LCH
lch(68.93% 35.31 229.68)
CMYK
cmyk(74%, 16%, 0%, 15%)

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.

Lull
modifier

Middle English lullen, to-sing-to-sleep. As a color modifier, lull implies a hushed-and-pacified-and-cradled quality, the visual register of cradle-song-and-vesper-lull hand-cradled-and-rocked cradle-and-cot-and-crib hand-rocked-and-sung-to-lulled-and-cradled lulled-and-cradled surfaces under cradle-song-and-vesper hush-and-quiet-and-still bedside-and-nursery-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to hush and soothe 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.

#38b6d8
Original
#a1b1da
Protanopia
#8ca1d8
Deuteranopia
#00c1c1
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
2.37:1
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
8.85:1

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
##38B6D8
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3743 0.7039 0.8322)
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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