Starched Zeus Kingfisher
Starched Zeus Kingfisher (#16A1AB) is a true cyan 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 (184°, 77%, 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 red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English stercan, to stiffen — past-participle of starch. As a color modifier, starched implies a clear-and-stiff-and-formal quality, the crisp color of Edwardian-period formal-evening-shirt-and-collar starched-and-pressed dress-attire. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to pressed and ironed in usage.
Greek Ζεύς, king-of-the-Olympian-gods. As a color modifier, zeus implies a thunderbolt-and-king-of-gods-and-Olympian quality, the visual register of Olympian-Zeus-and-Phidias-Pheidias-statue hand-thunderbolt-and-king-of-gods-and-Olympian Olympian-Zeus-and-Phidias-statue-and-Mount-Olympus zeus-and-thunderbolt-and-king-of-gods-and-Olympian surfaces under Olympian-Zeus-and-Phidias-statue-and-Mount-Olympus Pheidias-chryselephantine-and-Olympia thunder-cloud-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to hera and atlas in usage.
The family Alcedinidae — particularly Alcedo atthis, the European common kingfisher whose iridescent turquoise-blue plumage gives the color its name. The color refers to a male European kingfisher's wing: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green with the iridescent satin finish of structurally colored feathers.
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.
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.