colors
Back to gallery

Surveyed Sprite Kingfisher

#3a9daf
Notes

Surveyed Sprite Kingfisher (#3A9DAF) is a true cyan with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (189°, 50%, 46%) 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
#3a9daf
RGB
rgb(58, 157, 175)
HSL
hsl(189, 50%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(189 23% 31%)
OKLCH
oklch(64.6% 0.094 211.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3401 0.6075 0.6767)
HSV
hsv(189, 67%, 69%)
LAB
lab(59.98% -22.70 -17.79)
LCH
lch(59.98% 28.84 218.09)
CMYK
cmyk(67%, 10%, 0%, 31%)

Etymology

Surveyed
adjective

Old French surveer, to look upon — past-participle of survey. As a color modifier, surveyed implies a clear-and-measured-and-coordinated quality, the crisp color of Mason-Dixon-Line-and-Royal-Navy-Hydrographic scientific-and-cadastral land-and-sea surveying tradition. Sits at the crisp-and-mapped end of the grid, parallel to mapped and plotted in usage.

Sprite
modifier

Latin spiritus, spirit-or-elf. As a color modifier, sprite implies a fairy-elf-and-quick-and-impish quality, the visual register of English-folk-sprite-and-Shakespearean-Puck hand-fairy-elf-and-quick-and-impish English-folk-sprite-and-Shakespearean-Puck-and-Midsummer-Night sprite-and-fairy-elf-and-quick-and-impish surfaces under English-folk-sprite-and-Shakespearean-Puck-and-Midsummer-Night greenwood-and-elven-meadow fairy-revel-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to pixie and faun 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.

#3a9daf
Original
#8f98b0
Protanopia
#7e8baf
Deuteranopia
#00a5a2
Tritanopia
#898989
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
3.17:1
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
6.62:1

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
##3A9DAF
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3401 0.6075 0.6767)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.094

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.

Related Colors

Canvas