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Sure Glacier

#9cc8fe
Notes

Sure Glacier (#9CC8FE) is a soft azure with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (213°, 98%, 80%) 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 orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#9cc8fe
RGB
rgb(156, 200, 254)
HSL
hsl(213, 98%, 80%)
HWB
hwb(213 61% 0%)
OKLCH
oklch(82.1% 0.090 253.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6468 0.7794 0.9777)
HSV
hsv(213, 39%, 100%)
LAB
lab(79.35% -1.38 -31.12)
LCH
lch(79.35% 31.15 267.46)
CMYK
cmyk(39%, 21%, 0%, 0%)

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.

Glacier
noun

A compressed mass of ice that has accumulated over decades or centuries — Alpine, Andean, Patagonian, polar. The color refers to the exposed face of a clean glacier where compression has driven out the air: a soft, very pale blue-green with the optical clarity of dense ice. Lighter than aqua, cooler than seafoam, with the high-altitude weight of a landform now retreating across most of the planet.

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.

#9cc8fe
Original
#b4caff
Protanopia
#a8c0fd
Deuteranopia
#7ad4da
Tritanopia
#c3c3c3
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
1.73:1
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
12.11:1

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
##9CC8FE
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6468 0.7794 0.9777)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.090

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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