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Starched Juno Lagoon

#55e7fa
Notes

Starched Juno Lagoon (#55E7FA) 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 (187°, 94%, 66%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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
#55e7fa
RGB
rgb(85, 231, 250)
HSL
hsl(187, 94%, 66%)
HWB
hwb(187 33% 2%)
OKLCH
oklch(85.8% 0.125 207.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5027 0.8940 0.9685)
HSV
hsv(187, 66%, 98%)
LAB
lab(84.99% -32.82 -20.65)
LCH
lch(84.99% 38.77 212.17)
CMYK
cmyk(66%, 8%, 0%, 2%)

Etymology

Starched
adjective

Old English stercan, to stiffen — past-participle of starch. As a color modifier, starched implies a clear-and-stiff-and-formal quality, the crisp color of Edwardian-period formal-evening-shirt-and-collar starched-and-pressed dress-attire. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to pressed and ironed in usage.

Juno
modifier

Latin Juno, Roman-queen-of-gods. As a color modifier, juno implies an asteroid-and-queen-of-gods quality, the visual register of Juno-asteroid-and-Roman-queen hand-asteroid-and-queen-of-gods Juno-asteroid-and-Roman-queen-and-Jupiter-mission juno-and-asteroid-and-queen-of-gods surfaces under Juno-asteroid-and-Roman-queen-and-Jupiter-mission asteroid-belt-and-Roman-temple ancient-pantheon-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to ceres and vesta 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.

#55e7fa
Original
#d4defb
Protanopia
#bccdfa
Deuteranopia
#00f1ed
Tritanopia
#c9c9c9
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
1.48:1
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
14.20:1

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
##55E7FA
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5027 0.8940 0.9685)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.125

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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