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Pellucid Wane Ocean

#48b4d7
Notes

Pellucid Wane Ocean (#48B4D7) 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 (195°, 64%, 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 orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#48b4d7
RGB
rgb(72, 180, 215)
HSL
hsl(195, 64%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(195 28% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.2% 0.109 223.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4021 0.6968 0.8283)
HSV
hsv(195, 67%, 84%)
LAB
lab(68.70% -19.95 -26.70)
LCH
lch(68.70% 33.34 233.23)
CMYK
cmyk(67%, 16%, 0%, 16%)

Etymology

Pellucid
adjective

Latin pellūcidus, transparent — derived from per-lūcēre (to shine through). As a color modifier, pellucid implies a clear-and-translucent quality where the hue reads with optical clarity and minimal turbidity. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to lucid and translucent in usage.

Wane
modifier

Old English wanian, to lessen. As a color modifier, wane implies a waning-moon-and-fading quality, the visual register of waning-moon-and-late-summer gradually-diminishing-and-receding waning-and-fading celestial-body-and-seasonal-light surfaces under waning-and-receding lunar-and-seasonal light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to phase and eld in usage.

Ocean
noun

The body of saltwater that covers seventy percent of Earth's surface — a single connected mass divided by convention into Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Southern, and Arctic. The color refers to the average reflectance of mid-depth temperate ocean: a saturated, slightly green-shifted deep blue with the optical depth of a body of water that absorbs all light below the photic zone. Deeper than mediterranean, cooler than peacock.

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.

#48b4d7
Original
#a0b0d9
Protanopia
#8ca1d7
Deuteranopia
#00bfbf
Tritanopia
#a0a0a0
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
8.79:1

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
##48B4D7
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4021 0.6968 0.8283)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.109

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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