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Spotless Forgetmenot

#78defd
Notes

Spotless Forgetmenot (#78DEFD) is a soft 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 (194°, 97%, 73%) places it in the highly saturated band at a light 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
#78defd
RGB
rgb(120, 222, 253)
HSL
hsl(194, 97%, 73%)
HWB
hwb(194 47% 1%)
OKLCH
oklch(85.0% 0.104 220.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5696 0.8610 0.9779)
HSV
hsv(194, 53%, 99%)
LAB
lab(83.61% -21.50 -24.21)
LCH
lch(83.61% 32.38 228.39)
CMYK
cmyk(53%, 12%, 0%, 1%)

Etymology

Spotless
adjective

Old English spott (spot) plus suffix -less. As a color modifier, spotless implies a clear-and-unmarked quality where the hue carries no contaminating speck or stain. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to pristine and unblemished in usage.

Forgetmenot
noun

Myosotis sylvatica, the European forget-me-not — a small woodland-and-streamside wildflower whose pale blue five-petaled flowers symbolize remembrance and faithful love in European folk tradition. The color refers to a fresh forget-me-not flower: a soft, slightly cool pale blue with the matte finish of small five-petaled flower with yellow center.

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.

#78defd
Original
#cbd9ff
Protanopia
#b7cafd
Deuteranopia
#0de8e8
Tritanopia
#cbcbcb
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
1.54:1
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
13.67:1

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
##78DEFD
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5696 0.8610 0.9779)
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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