Salubrious Bark Kingfisher
Salubrious Bark Kingfisher (#249CB5) 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 (190°, 67%, 43%) 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.
Etymology
Latin salūbris, healthful — adjectival suffix -ous. As a color modifier, salubrious implies a clear-and-healthful-and-fresh quality, the crisp color of Alpine-and-Sea-air health-resort and Mediterranean-coast spa-and-thalassotherapy outdoor environment. Sits at the crisp-and-wholesome end of the grid, parallel to healthful and bracing in usage.
Old Norse bǫrkr, bark. As a color modifier, bark implies a tree-bark-and-rough-and-cork quality, the visual register of birch-and-oak-and-cork-bark hand-stripped-and-cork-bark birch-and-oak-and-cork-tree-bark hand-stripped-tree-bark surfaces under birch-and-oak-and-cork-bark hand-stripped-bark forest light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to rough and cane 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.