Loud Heron
Loud Heron (#1AE6E2) 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 (179°, 80%, 50%) 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 hlūd, making noise — borrowed metaphorically as a color word since the nineteenth century. Loud red, loud yellow: a color so saturated it announces itself without needing surrounding context. Sits in the bright-bucket extreme alongside electric and striking. Carries a slightly pejorative implication of excess.
The family Ardeidae — particularly Ardea cinerea (gray heron) of European wetlands and Ardea herodias (great blue heron) of North America, whose plumage is dominated by saturated blue-gray. The color refers to a great blue heron in flight: a soft, slightly cool deep blue-gray with the matte finish of large wading-bird plumage.
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.