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Ironed Brood Kingfisher

#1aa4b0
Notes

Ironed Brood Kingfisher (#1AA4B0) is a true cyan with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (185°, 74%, 40%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. 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.

HEX
#1aa4b0
RGB
rgb(26, 164, 176)
HSL
hsl(185, 74%, 40%)
HWB
hwb(185 10% 31%)
OKLCH
oklch(65.7% 0.108 204.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3023 0.6337 0.6817)
HSV
hsv(185, 85%, 69%)
LAB
lab(61.57% -29.54 -16.01)
LCH
lch(61.57% 33.60 208.45)
CMYK
cmyk(85%, 7%, 0%, 31%)

Etymology

Ironed
adjective

Old English īsern, iron — past-participle of iron. As a color modifier, ironed implies a clear-and-smoothed-and-pressed quality, the crisp color of Mid-Century-Modern freshly-ironed-shirt-and-trouser dress-attire textile finish. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to pressed and starched in usage.

Brood
modifier

Old English brōd, young-of-birds-or-to-ponder. As a color modifier, brood implies a hen-and-pondering-and-darkly-thinking quality, the visual register of Heathcliff-and-Hamlet-brood hand-hen-and-pondering-and-darkly-thinking Heathcliff-and-Hamlet-and-Byronic-hero brooded-and-pondering-and-darkly-thinking surfaces under Heathcliff-and-Hamlet-and-Byronic-hero stormy-and-overcast-and-introspective Yorkshire-moor-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to mope and sigh in usage.

Kingfisher
noun

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 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.

#1aa4b0
Original
#969db1
Protanopia
#828fb0
Deuteranopia
#00aba7
Tritanopia
#888888
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).
AA Largeon White
3.01:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
6.98:1

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
##1AA4B0
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3023 0.6337 0.6817)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.108

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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