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Welcoming Hermes Lagoon

#53c7c9
Notes

Welcoming Hermes Lagoon (#53C7C9) 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 (181°, 52%, 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
#53c7c9
RGB
rgb(83, 199, 201)
HSL
hsl(181, 52%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(181 33% 21%)
OKLCH
oklch(76.5% 0.104 196.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4523 0.7705 0.7825)
HSV
hsv(181, 59%, 79%)
LAB
lab(74.13% -31.70 -10.81)
LCH
lch(74.13% 33.50 198.82)
CMYK
cmyk(59%, 1%, 0%, 21%)

Etymology

Welcoming
adjective

Old English wel-cuman, well-coming — present-participle of welcome. As a color modifier, welcoming implies a clear-and-inviting-and-warm quality where the hue carries the visual register of cordial-and-hospitable color-tone. Sits at the crisp-and-cheerful end of the grid, parallel to hospitable and inviting in usage.

Hermes
modifier

Greek Ἑρμῆς, messenger-of-the-Olympian-gods. As a color modifier, hermes implies a winged-sandal-and-caduceus-and-messenger quality, the visual register of Praxiteles-Hermes-and-Olympia-marble hand-winged-sandal-and-caduceus-and-messenger Praxiteles-Hermes-and-Olympia-marble-and-Hellenistic-bronze hermes-and-winged-sandal-and-caduceus surfaces under Praxiteles-Hermes-and-Olympia-marble-and-Hellenistic-bronze Olympian-pantheon-and-marketplace Mediterranean-marble-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to zeus and atlas 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.

#53c7c9
Original
#bbbec9
Protanopia
#a8b0ca
Deuteranopia
#00cdc7
Tritanopia
#aeaeae
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
2.02:1
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
10.38:1

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
##53C7C9
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4523 0.7705 0.7825)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.104

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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