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Serene Bergen

#53b4cb
Notes

Serene Bergen (#53B4CB) 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 (192°, 54%, 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
#53b4cb
RGB
rgb(83, 180, 203)
HSL
hsl(192, 54%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(192 33% 20%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.1% 0.096 215.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4265 0.6973 0.7847)
HSV
hsv(192, 59%, 80%)
LAB
lab(68.60% -21.73 -20.23)
LCH
lch(68.60% 29.69 222.96)
CMYK
cmyk(59%, 11%, 0%, 20%)

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.

Bergen
noun

The Norwegian fjord-town on the Bryggen harbor — and the saturated deep blue of Bergen's Vågen harbor and the surrounding Hardangerfjord water. Bergen color refers to Bergen harbor at clear-day midday: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the optical depth of glacier-fed coastal water.

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.

#53b4cb
Original
#a4afcc
Protanopia
#92a2cb
Deuteranopia
#00bdbb
Tritanopia
#a1a1a1
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
2.40:1
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
8.76:1

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
##53B4CB
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4265 0.6973 0.7847)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.096

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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