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Useful Phase Lagoon

#6eb6dd
Notes

Useful Phase Lagoon (#6EB6DD) is a true azure 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 (201°, 62%, 65%) 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
#6eb6dd
RGB
rgb(110, 182, 221)
HSL
hsl(201, 62%, 65%)
HWB
hwb(201 43% 13%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.4% 0.092 233.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4970 0.7066 0.8515)
HSV
hsv(201, 50%, 87%)
LAB
lab(70.86% -11.96 -26.54)
LCH
lch(70.86% 29.11 245.74)
CMYK
cmyk(50%, 18%, 0%, 13%)

Etymology

Useful
adjective

Latin ūsus, use — adjectival suffix -ful. As a color modifier, useful implies a clear-and-purpose-serving quality where the hue carries the visual register of helpful-and-supporting design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and serviceable in usage.

Phase
modifier

Greek phásis, appearance / phase-of-the-moon. As a color modifier, phase implies a moon-phase-and-cycle-stage quality, the visual register of lunar-and-tidal-cycle moon-phase-and-tidal-rhythm waxing-and-waning lunar-cycle surfaces under waxing-and-waning lunar-cycle light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to cycle and wane 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.

#6eb6dd
Original
#a3b4df
Protanopia
#94a8dc
Deuteranopia
#31c0c3
Tritanopia
#aaaaaa
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
2.23:1
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
9.40:1

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
##6EB6DD
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4970 0.7066 0.8515)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.092

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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