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Candid Caraway Lagoon

#588e96
Notes

Candid Caraway Lagoon (#588E96) is a true cyan with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (188°, 26%, 47%) places it in the muted 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
#588e96
RGB
rgb(88, 142, 150)
HSL
hsl(188, 26%, 47%)
HWB
hwb(188 35% 41%)
OKLCH
oklch(61.2% 0.058 207.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3934 0.5514 0.5829)
HSV
hsv(188, 41%, 59%)
LAB
lab(55.71% -15.70 -9.89)
LCH
lch(55.71% 18.55 212.19)
CMYK
cmyk(41%, 5%, 0%, 41%)

Etymology

Candid
adjective

Latin candidus, bright-white / honest — derived from candēre (to shine). As a color modifier, candid implies a clear-and-honest-and-direct quality where the hue carries the visual register of straightforward-honest declaration. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to frank and plainspoken in usage.

Caraway
modifier

Arabic al-karawiyā, aromatic-rye-bread-seed. As a color modifier, caraway implies an aromatic-rye-bread-and-Central-European-seed quality, the visual register of Bavarian-and-Central-European-caraway hand-aromatic-rye-bread-and-Central-European-seed Bavarian-and-Central-European-caraway-and-Czech-and-Hungarian-rye caraway-and-aromatic-rye-bread surfaces under Bavarian-and-Central-European-caraway-and-Czech-and-Hungarian-rye Bavaria-and-Bohemia-and-Hungary Central-European-rye-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to cumin and anise 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.

#588e96
Original
#868a97
Protanopia
#7b8296
Deuteranopia
#3d9290
Tritanopia
#838383
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).
AA Largeon White
3.67:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
5.72:1

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
##588E96
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3934 0.5514 0.5829)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.058

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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