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Serene Tile Lagoon

#39c4e3
Notes

Serene Tile Lagoon (#39C4E3) 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°, 75%, 56%) 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
#39c4e3
RGB
rgb(57, 196, 227)
HSL
hsl(191, 75%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(191 22% 11%)
OKLCH
oklch(76.1% 0.122 216.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3983 0.7580 0.8756)
HSV
hsv(191, 75%, 89%)
LAB
lab(73.48% -26.31 -25.94)
LCH
lch(73.48% 36.95 224.60)
CMYK
cmyk(75%, 14%, 0%, 11%)

Etymology

Serene
adjective

Latin serēnus, clear / unclouded. As a color modifier, serene implies a clear-and-untroubled quality where the hue carries the visual register of cloudless-bright-day atmospheric stability. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to placid and untroubled in usage.

Tile
modifier

Old English tigele, roof-tile. As a color modifier, tile implies a fired-clay-or-stone-flat quality, the visual register of Spanish-and-Italian-and-Persian-tile hand-fired-and-glazed clay-and-stone-and-marble Spanish-and-Italian-and-Persian-tile surfaces under Spanish-and-Italian-and-Persian-tile workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to slab and plate 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.

#39c4e3
Original
#afbee5
Protanopia
#98ade3
Deuteranopia
#00cfce
Tritanopia
#a9a9a9
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
2.06:1
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
10.18:1

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
##39C4E3
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3983 0.7580 0.8756)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.122

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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