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Sure Geneva

#96b0ef
Notes

Sure Geneva (#96B0EF) is a soft 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 (222°, 74%, 76%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#96b0ef
RGB
rgb(150, 176, 239)
HSL
hsl(222, 74%, 76%)
HWB
hwb(222 59% 6%)
OKLCH
oklch(76.1% 0.096 266.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6080 0.6871 0.9175)
HSV
hsv(222, 37%, 94%)
LAB
lab(72.07% 6.23 -34.30)
LCH
lch(72.07% 34.86 280.29)
CMYK
cmyk(37%, 26%, 0%, 6%)

Etymology

Sure
adjective

Old French seur, certain — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as confident and stable. Sure red, sure blue: moderate saturation combined with optical commitment. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside steady and true.

Geneva
noun

Lake Geneva — Lac Léman in French — the largest Alpine lake, between Switzerland and France. Geneva color refers to Lake Geneva water at Montreux in midsummer: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the optical depth of Alpine glacier-fed lake.

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.

#96b0ef
Original
#9bb5f2
Protanopia
#92adee
Deuteranopia
#7abdc6
Tritanopia
#afafaf
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
2.15:1
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
9.75:1

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
##96B0EF
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6080 0.6871 0.9175)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.096

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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