LightBlue
#ADD8E6Cyan family
About LightBlue
LightBlue (#ADD8E6) is a light, moderately saturated cyan. Cyan blends blue's calm with green's freshness, evoking clear water and open skies with a crisp, modern, slightly techy feel.
Psychology
Cyan feels clean, refreshing and clear-headed. It suggests clarity, innovation and cool efficiency, and it is less heavy than deep blue while still reading as calm and trustworthy.
Applications
Cyan and teal are staples of tech, travel, healthcare and aquatic brands. They are excellent for gradients, links, accents and data visualizations, and pair beautifully with navy, white and warm neutrals.
History
Cyan has long been a secondary hue in printing; together with magenta, yellow and black it forms the CMYK process that reproduces full-color images. Its modern popularity grew with digital displays and tech branding.
Meaning
Cyan is associated with clarity, freshness and modernity. It can evoke tropical water, cool air and precision, making it a favorite for brands that want to feel clean and contemporary.
Why use this color
Use cyan when you want a design to feel fresh, modern and trustworthy without the formality of navy. It is ideal for tech, health and travel brands and for crisp UI accents.
Accessibility
Against white, #ADD8E6 has a 1.5:1 contrast ratio; against black it is 13.7:1. Black text on #ADD8E6 meets WCAG AA for normal text.
Fun facts
- Cyan is one of the three primary colors of the CMYK printing process.
- The word cyan comes from the Greek kyanos, meaning dark blue.
- Cyan ink, together with magenta and yellow, can reproduce most printed colors.
Shades, tints & tones
Variations
Ten lightness steps plus LightBlue's tints, shades and tones — every swatch copies its hex on click.
Lightness scale
Tints (toward white)
Shades (toward black)
Tones (toward gray)
Color theory
Color harmonies
Proven schemes built around LightBlue. Each swatch is one click from your clipboard.
Complementary
Analogous
Triadic
Split-complementary
Tetradic
Monochromatic
Accessibility
Blindness simulator
See how LightBlue is perceived with common types of color vision deficiency.
Normal vision
Standard trichromatic vision, shown for reference.
Protanopia
Red-blind. Reds look darker and can be confused with greens and browns.
Deuteranopia
Green-blind. Greens look muted and can be confused with reds and browns.
Tritanopia
Blue-blind. Blues look greenish and yellows fade toward pink.
Achromatopsia
Complete color blindness. Everything is seen in shades of gray.
WCAG
Contrast checker
How LightBlue performs against black and white text, with WCAG AA and AAA ratings.
The ratio is identical whether LightBlue is used as the text or the background.
Open the full checkerReady to use
Color palettes
Curated palettes that put LightBlue to work, with copy-all support for each.
Complementary
Roughly 180° across the wheel from #ADD8E6 (hue 195°) sits #e6bbad, held together by the #ffffff tint and the neutrals #f4f4f5 and #18181b.
Analogous
#ADD8E6 with its two closest neighbours, #ade6d8 and #adbbe6, for a 53%-saturation run that stays inside one family; #ffffff and #4ca9c8 add depth without breaking it.
Triadic
#ADD8E6 plus #e6add8 and #d8e6ad, a triangle that sits 120° apart at every corner, with #f4f4f5 and #18181b doing the quiet work underneath.
Monochromatic
One hue at 5 lightness steps: #eff8fa through #071317, starting from #ADD8E6 at 79% lightness.
LightBlue (#ADD8E6) is a cyan-family color. Use its values, variations, harmonies and palettes above to put it to work in your next design.
Frequently asked questions
LightBlue is #ADD8E6 — rgb(173, 216, 230) / hsl(195, 53%, 79%). LightBlue (#ADD8E6) is a light, moderately saturated cyan. Cyan blends blue's calm with green's freshness, evoking clear water and open skies with a crisp, modern, slightly techy feel.
Good to know
- LightBlue is one of 609 named colors in the library.
- Its complementary hue sits 180° away on the color wheel: #e6bbad.
More color tools
Next steps for LightBlue: each of these picks the value up where this page leaves off, so nothing gets retyped or re-uploaded.