colors
Back to gallery

Lined Carved Lagoon

#3ac4e3
Notes

Lined Carved Lagoon (#3AC4E3) 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
#3ac4e3
RGB
rgb(58, 196, 227)
HSL
hsl(191, 75%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(191 23% 11%)
OKLCH
oklch(76.1% 0.121 216.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3999 0.7580 0.8757)
HSV
hsv(191, 74%, 89%)
LAB
lab(73.49% -26.20 -25.91)
LCH
lch(73.49% 36.85 224.69)
CMYK
cmyk(74%, 14%, 0%, 11%)

Etymology

Lined
adjective

Old English līne, line / cord — past-participle of line. As a color modifier, lined implies a clear-and-coordinated-and-supported quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-lined-and-supported textile-or-print surface. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to trim and coordinated in usage.

Carved
modifier

Old English ceorfan, to-cut. As a color modifier, carved implies a hand-cut-and-shaped quality, the visual register of Romanesque-and-Gothic-stone-carving hand-cut-and-shaped stone-and-wood-and-ivory hand-carved-and-relief carved-and-shaped surfaces under Romanesque-and-Gothic hand-carved-stone-and-wood workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to hewn and limned 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.

#3ac4e3
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
10.19:1

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
##3AC4E3
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3999 0.7580 0.8757)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.121

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.

Related Colors

Canvas