Kyanos#00F4FF, a cool brilliant turquoise
Kyanos in RGB, HSL, OKLCH & more
Ready to ship: every line pastes straight into your codebase, and the whole file copies at once.
ART is Rhapsody's perceptual model. How ART works
Why is it called Kyanos?
Kyanos's meaning, origin, and pronunciation, with sources.
Anchor: A35 · one of the 72 anchor hues of ART
Origin: Greek, written down since the Bronze Age, and probably borrowed even then from a lost earlier language
Meaning: Dark-blue enamel and lapis lazuli; the ancestor of cyan
Word: κύανος (Ancient Greek)
KEE-ah-noss (ancient) · /ˈkyː.a.nos/ (modern Greek stresses the end: kya-NOSS)
Mycenaean Greek ku-wa-no, pressed into clay tablets at Pylos in the thirteenth century BCE → Ancient Greek kúanos → Latin cyanus → English cyan, coined in the printing era.
In Homer, kyanos is the dark-blue enamel decorating Agamemnon's armor. In Theophrastus it is lapis lazuli. For a long time the word named a luxury material rather than a color in the abstract.
It was probably borrowed in the first place from some language spoken in Greece before Greek, possibly related to a Hittite word for a blue stone, which would mean even Greek borrowed its blue. All of which gives kyanos one of the longest continuous paper trails of any color word on Earth: written in three scripts across more than three thousand years, from Bronze Age palace inventories to the C in CMYK, the cyan cartridge in your printer.
LSJ s.v. κύανος; Wiktionary s.v. cyan, κυανός (Mycenaean, Hittite comparison); etymonline s.v. cyan. Dictionary + scholarly sources; no native-speaker review.
Shades of Kyanos, lighter and darker
For hover states, washed backgrounds, and dark surfaces that still read as #00F4FF. 13 steps, spaced evenly by eye, with the color itself sitting at its natural depth, kyanos-300.
Tints (light surfaces; dark text passes on every one)
Midtones (the color at full strength, for brand & accent work)
Shades (dark surfaces; light text passes on every one)
Most tools mix. Rhapsody measures.
Paste any color. The whole system comes back, contrast-checked before you see it.
The window on the right was generated from #00F4FF, like this whole page.
Is Kyanos accessible? Contrast with white & black
Strong contrast makes your work readable by everyone, and meets the WCAG standard accessibility law points at. AA is the floor; AAA is the tier worth aiming for in body text. Black text on #00F4FF clears WCAG AAA. Every strip below is one surface, and the marks are the steps that reach AAA on it.
Rows are text, columns are background · 68 of 210 pairings reach WCAG 2.2 AAA, shown here.
Ship the audit, not screenshots.
Run #00F4FF against the colors you actually ship, every pairing and any target, and export it: exact ratios, the AA tier, APCA, in one file.
The audit on the right was calibrated from #00F4FF, like this whole page.
Kyanos in CMYK: one value for files, one per press
This color shifts further than a press run can hold, so expect a visible difference. The pairs below show where each standard lands.
In CMYK, #00F4FF is . That is the value design tools and file formats use when no press is involved.
On press (what each standard prints)
shifts ΔE00 11.8, 4.7× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 12.6, 5.0× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 11.5, 4.6× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 12.1, 4.8× the 2.5 a run varies by
shifts ΔE00 11.3, 4.5× the 2.5 a run varies by
Press values computed through the ICC characterization data each standard proofs against. Each CMYK above is the closest that standard can get.
No surprises at the printer.
Run any color through the major press standards: FOGRA51, GRACoL, Japan Color, FOGRA39. It's coming soon. Create a free account and you'll get a note the moment it's live.
The strip shows this page's tints and shades on screen, then through a standard GRACoL 2013 conversion.
Colors similar to Kyanos
Dark-blue enamel and lapis lazuli; the ancestor of cyan
Here are other colors similar to Kyanos along with accessible text pairings and whether or not they're print-safe. Explore The Turquoises
| Bright Light Blue | Bright Light Blue | #26F7FD | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Anqas | Anqas | #00EAFF | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Robin'S Egg | Robin'S Egg | #6DEDFD | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Cielo | Cielo | #00DFFF | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Neon Blue | Neon Blue | #04D9FF | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Aqua Blue | Aqua Blue | #02D8E9 | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Peacock | Peacock | #00D4FF | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Bright Sky Blue | Bright Sky Blue | #02CCFE | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Cerulean | Cerulean | #00C9FF | black text · AAA | ✕ shifts on press |
| Scooter | Scooter | #2EBFD4 | black text · AAA | ! within tolerance |
| Turquoise Blue | Turquoise Blue | #06B1C4 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Shakespeare | Shakespeare | #4EABD1 | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Pacific Blue | Pacific Blue | #009DC4 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Eastern Blue | Eastern Blue | #1E9AB0 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Bondi Blue | Bondi Blue | #0095B6 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Boston Blue | Boston Blue | #3B91B4 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
Colors that go with Kyanos
The complementary color, straight across the wheel, is a warm rich pink #E4609F. Rhapsody's pick is the split complement, just to one side of it, a livelier pair.
The accent is for the moments that need attention, the harmony for the ones that need calm; the neutral carries the text and surfaces in between.
Take Kyanos with you
The work on this page doesn't stay here. Save a card and the color arrives in your file, your deck or your board already decided.
Your system is already built.
Rhapsody built it before you even asked: the scale, the neutrals, the utilities, every pairing calibrated.
This page's whole theme is built from one color. Palette does the same for yours: every step calibrated, every pairing checked, press included.
Every color on this page was calibrated, not mixed.
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