Cyan colors
18 cyan colors, sorted light to dark. The lightest is Celeste at 85 percent lightness, the darkest is Teal at 25 percent. Each one has hex, HSL, OKLCH and the contrast it gives against white and ink black.
| Color | Hex | HSL | OKLCH | On white | On ink |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Celeste | #B2FFFF | hsl(180, 100%, 85%) | oklch(95.02% 0.0752 195.96) | 1.13:1 | 16.99:1 |
| Pale Turquoise | #AFEEEE | hsl(180, 65%, 81%) | oklch(90.69% 0.0632 196.09) | 1.29:1 | 14.84:1 |
| Aquamarine | #7FFFD4 | hsl(160, 100%, 75%) | oklch(91.50% 0.1304 168.99) | 1.22:1 | 15.63:1 |
| Baby Blue | #89CFF0 | hsl(199, 77%, 74%) | oklch(81.99% 0.0842 229.33) | 1.71:1 | 11.16:1 |
| Turquoise | #40E0D0 | hsl(174, 72%, 56%) | oklch(82.23% 0.1307 185.09) | 1.64:1 | 11.66:1 |
| Medium Turquoise | #48D1CC | hsl(178, 60%, 55%) | oklch(78.68% 0.1162 191.56) | 1.86:1 | 10.27:1 |
| Robin Egg | #30D5C8 | hsl(175, 66%, 51%) | oklch(79.02% 0.1294 186.71) | 1.83:1 | 10.46:1 |
| Cyan | #00FFFF | hsl(180, 100%, 50%) | oklch(90.54% 0.1546 194.77) | 1.25:1 | 15.26:1 |
| Cadet Blue | #5F9EA0 | hsl(182, 25%, 50%) | oklch(65.77% 0.0650 198.30) | 3.05:1 | 6.27:1 |
| Turquoise Blue | #00FFEF | hsl(176, 100%, 50%) | oklch(90.02% 0.1574 186.74) | 1.27:1 | 15.08:1 |
| Vivid Sky | #12C2E9 | hsl(191, 86%, 49%) | oklch(75.33% 0.1346 219.54) | 2.12:1 | 9.04:1 |
| Light Sea Green | #20B2AA | hsl(177, 70%, 41%) | oklch(69.12% 0.1142 188.96) | 2.62:1 | 7.30:1 |
| Dark Turquoise | #00CED1 | hsl(181, 100%, 41%) | oklch(77.19% 0.1314 196.64) | 1.95:1 | 9.80:1 |
| Tiffany Blue | #0ABAB5 | hsl(178, 90%, 38%) | oklch(71.31% 0.1215 191.35) | 2.41:1 | 7.93:1 |
| Teal Blue | #367588 | hsl(194, 43%, 37%) | oklch(52.90% 0.0708 220.36) | 5.18:1 | 3.70:1 |
| Blue Green | #088F8F | hsl(180, 89%, 30%) | oklch(58.92% 0.0993 194.80) | 3.94:1 | 4.86:1 |
| Dark Cyan | #008B8B | hsl(180, 100%, 27%) | oklch(57.65% 0.0984 194.77) | 4.15:1 | 4.62:1 |
| Teal | #008080 | hsl(180, 100%, 25%) | oklch(54.31% 0.0927 194.77) | 4.77:1 | 4.01:1 |
Where cyan sits on the wheel
In HSL terms this family covers roughly 165 to 195 degrees. Cyan is a narrow band between green and blue, and it is the family where the sRGB gamut is at its brightest relative to what a printer can reproduce. Pure cyan is fully in gamut on a screen and unreachable in process ink.
Working with cyan in an interface
Cyans read as technical and cool, which makes them useful for informational states, links and data visualisation, where they sit far enough from both the success green and the warning orange to stay unambiguous.
In this set, 2 of 18 cyan colors clear WCAG AA for normal text on a white background, and 16 of 18 clear it as text on ink black. The most saturated is Turquoise Blue at an OKLCH chroma of 0.157, the most muted is Pale Turquoise at 0.063. If you are building a ramp, those two are the practical edges of what this family gives you.
The mistake to avoid
A cyan that looks perfect on screen is the one most likely to disappoint in print. If a design will be printed, check the CMYK values before the client sees the screen version, not after.
Check any pair you are unsure about in the contrast checker, or open the contrast matrix to see which library colors pair safely with each other.
Other families
Last updated by FusionStudios. Every value on this page is computed by the same functions the tools use. How this is calculated.