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Sanitary Ishtar Kingfisher

#2e9cb4
Notes

Sanitary Ishtar Kingfisher (#2E9CB4) 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 (191°, 59%, 44%) 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
#2e9cb4
RGB
rgb(46, 156, 180)
HSL
hsl(191, 59%, 44%)
HWB
hwb(191 18% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(64.3% 0.101 215.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3162 0.6032 0.6944)
HSV
hsv(191, 74%, 71%)
LAB
lab(59.57% -22.27 -21.27)
LCH
lch(59.57% 30.80 223.68)
CMYK
cmyk(74%, 13%, 0%, 29%)

Etymology

Sanitary
adjective

Latin sānitās, health — adjectival suffix -ary. As a color modifier, sanitary implies a clear-and-clean-and-medical quality, the crisp color of Bauhaus-and-Modern clinical-and-hospital interior-architecture white-tile-and-stainless-steel surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to hygienic and sterile in usage.

Ishtar
modifier

Akkadian Ištar, Babylonian-goddess-of-love-and-war. As a color modifier, ishtar implies a Babylonian-Venus-and-eight-pointed-star quality, the visual register of Babylonian-Ishtar-Gate-and-Mesopotamian-temple hand-Babylonian-Venus-and-eight-pointed-star Babylonian-Ishtar-Gate-and-Mesopotamian-temple-and-Akkadian-cylinder-seal ishtar-and-Babylonian-Venus-and-eight-pointed-star surfaces under Babylonian-Ishtar-Gate-and-Mesopotamian-temple-and-Akkadian-cylinder-seal Babylon-and-Nineveh-and-Mari blue-glazed-brick-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to isis and hera 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.

#2e9cb4
Original
#8c97b5
Protanopia
#798ab4
Deuteranopia
#00a5a3
Tritanopia
#868686
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
3.22:1
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
6.53:1

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
##2E9CB4
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3162 0.6032 0.6944)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.101

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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