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Direct Capricorn Kingfisher

#2a9daa
Notes

Direct Capricorn Kingfisher (#2A9DAA) is a true cyan with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (186°, 60%, 42%) 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
#2a9daa
RGB
rgb(42, 157, 170)
HSL
hsl(186, 60%, 42%)
HWB
hwb(186 16% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(64.0% 0.099 206.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3112 0.6070 0.6582)
HSV
hsv(186, 75%, 67%)
LAB
lab(59.44% -26.47 -15.82)
LCH
lch(59.44% 30.84 210.87)
CMYK
cmyk(75%, 8%, 0%, 33%)

Etymology

Direct
adjective

From the Latin directus, straight — used as a color modifier since the eighteenth century for hues that read as straightforward and unambiguous. Direct red, direct green: moderate-to-high saturation combined with optical clarity. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside clear and frank.

Capricorn
modifier

Latin capricornus, horned-goat-of-the-zodiac. As a color modifier, capricorn implies a sea-goat-and-earth-sign-and-Saturn-ruled-cardinal-earth quality, the visual register of Hellenic-Capricorn-and-Pan-sea-goat hand-sea-goat-and-earth-sign-and-Saturn-ruled-cardinal-earth Hellenic-Capricorn-and-Pan-sea-goat-and-Babylonian-Suhurmašu capricorn-and-sea-goat-and-earth-sign surfaces under Hellenic-Capricorn-and-Pan-sea-goat-and-Babylonian-Suhurmašu winter-solstice-and-December-and-January cardinal-earth-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to sagittarius and aquarius 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.

#2a9daa
Original
#8f97ab
Protanopia
#7e8aaa
Deuteranopia
#00a4a1
Tritanopia
#858585
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
3.23:1
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
6.50:1

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
##2A9DAA
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3112 0.6070 0.6582)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.099

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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