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Sterile Throne Lagoon

#47b5ce
Notes

Sterile Throne Lagoon (#47B5CE) is a true cyan with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (191°, 58%, 54%) 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
#47b5ce
RGB
rgb(71, 181, 206)
HSL
hsl(191, 58%, 54%)
HWB
hwb(191 28% 19%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.0% 0.105 215.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4014 0.7006 0.7957)
HSV
hsv(191, 66%, 81%)
LAB
lab(68.64% -23.40 -21.86)
LCH
lch(68.64% 32.02 223.05)
CMYK
cmyk(66%, 12%, 0%, 19%)

Etymology

Sterile
adjective

Latin sterilis, barren / not-fertile — sharing root with Greek steiros (barren). As a color modifier, sterile implies a clear-and-medical-clean-and-stripped quality, the crisp color of operating-theater surgical-environment white-and-stainless-steel surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sanitary and hygienic in usage.

Throne
modifier

Latin thronus, seat-of-state. As a color modifier, throne implies a king-and-queen-ceremonial-seat quality, the visual register of Russian-Imperial-and-Tudor-Court hand-carved jeweled-and-gilt-and-velvet ceremonial-seat-of-state surfaces under Russian-Imperial-Romanov-and-Tudor-Court hand-carved ceremonial-seat candlelight. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to crown and manor 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.

#47b5ce
Original
#a4b0cf
Protanopia
#90a1ce
Deuteranopia
#00bebd
Tritanopia
#9f9f9f
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
2.39:1
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
8.77:1

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
##47B5CE
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4014 0.7006 0.7957)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.105

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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