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Translucent Shade Lagoon

#40bfde
Notes

Translucent Shade Lagoon (#40BFDE) 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 (192°, 71%, 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
#40bfde
RGB
rgb(64, 191, 222)
HSL
hsl(192, 71%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(192 25% 13%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.9% 0.116 217.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4026 0.7389 0.8563)
HSV
hsv(192, 71%, 87%)
LAB
lab(71.97% -24.53 -25.52)
LCH
lch(71.97% 35.39 226.13)
CMYK
cmyk(71%, 14%, 0%, 13%)

Etymology

Translucent
adjective

Latin trans-lūcēre, to shine through — present-participle of translucere. As a color modifier, translucent implies a clear-and-light-passing quality where the hue allows partial light-transmission through its visual surface. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to pellucid and vitreous in usage.

Shade
modifier

Old English sceadu, shadow-or-shelter. As a color modifier, shade implies a sheltered-and-cool-and-shadowed quality, the visual register of Tuscan-cypress-and-Provençal-plane-tree-shade hand-sheltered-and-cool-and-shadowed Tuscan-cypress-and-Provençal-plane-tree-and-English-yew shaded-and-sheltered-and-cool surfaces under Tuscan-cypress-and-Provençal-plane-tree-and-English-yew dappled-and-cool-and-filtered afternoon-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to shadow and gloam 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.

#40bfde
Original
#abb9e0
Protanopia
#95aade
Deuteranopia
#00cac9
Tritanopia
#a6a6a6
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
2.16:1
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
9.73:1

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
##40BFDE
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4026 0.7389 0.8563)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.116

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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