Armored Kabud
Armored Kabud (#0548BE) is a true azure with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (218°, 95%, 38%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid 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 amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old French armëure, armor — past-participle of armor, derived from Latin arma (weapons). As a color modifier, armored implies a saturated-and-armor-clad-and-defensive quality, the deep-rich color of medieval-knight full-plate-armor visible-and-formidable battle-presence. Sits at the bold-and-fortified end of the grid, parallel to ironclad and shielded.
The Arabic word for blue — used in classical Arabic poetry for the blue of the sea, the sky, and Persian-tile mosques. Kabud spans the deep azure-blue range distinct from azraq (sky-blue) and neel (indigo). The color refers to the kabud-glazed dome of the Imam Mosque at Isfahan: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the high gloss of fired faience.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.
Wide gamut
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.
This color is chromatic enough that authoring it as P3 native (instead of clamping to sRGB) gives a perceptibly more saturated render on wide-gamut displays — modern Macs, iPhones, iPads, and most recent OLED laptops.