Tints & Shades
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Scale from white (50) through Maya Blue (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #73C2FB
- RGB
- rgb(115, 194, 251)
- HSL
- hsl(205, 94%, 72%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.785 0.113 242)
- CMYK
- cmyk(54%, 23%, 0%, 2%)
--color-maya-bluebg-[#73C2FB]Accessibility
Score: 48/100On White (#FFF)
1.94:1
On Black (#000)
10.84:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
1.78:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #73C2FB
color: #73C2FB
bg-[#73C2FB] text-[#000000]
border-left: 4px solid #73C2FB
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Burnt Orange
#CC5500
Split-Complementary
Similar Colors
Color Meaning & Psychology
Blue is the world's most universally preferred color across cultures. It slows respiration, lowers blood pressure, and promotes calm — the physiological opposite of red. Blue's associations with sky and water make it feel limitless, trustworthy, and reliable. In corporate design, blue dominates banking, insurance, healthcare, and technology precisely because it communicates stability. Dark navy conveys authority and tradition; royal blues suggest quality and aspiration; sky blues feel open and optimistic; teal bridges trust with modernity. The primary limitation of blue is food — it suppresses appetite, with almost no naturally blue foods existing in nature. Its lighter value makes it approachable and soft — suitable for backgrounds, secondary UI states, and contexts requiring the hue's character without full intensity.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Maya Blue is applied in professional design.
- Banking, insurance, and financial institutions
- Healthcare and medical device companies
- Enterprise software and SaaS platforms
- Government and public sector organizations
- Airlines and aviation brands
- Communication and social networking apps
- Cybersecurity and data protection products
- Pharmaceutical companies and clinical products
Accessibility Considerations
Normal Text
Fails AA
4.5:1 minimum required
Large Text
Fails AA Large
3:1 minimum required
UI Components
Check contrast
3:1 for non-text UI
Maya Blue is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (10.84:1). Avoid white text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #73C2FB;Text
color: #73C2FB;Border
border: 2px solid #73C2FB;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #73C2FB40;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #73C2FB, #a9f5ff);Tailwind-style
--color-maya-blue: #73C2FB;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Maya Blue without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#73C2FB]Text
text-[#73C2FB]Border
border-[#73C2FB]Ring
ring-[#73C2FB]Fill
fill-[#73C2FB]From (gradient)
from-[#73C2FB]Via (gradient)
via-[#73C2FB]To (gradient)
to-[#73C2FB]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Maya Blue design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-maya-blue: #73C2FB;
--color-maya-blue-rgb: 115, 194, 251;
--color-maya-blue-hsl: 205, 94%, 72%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-maya-blue: #73C2FB; $color-maya-blue-rgb: 115, 194, 251; $color-maya-blue-hsl: 205, 94%, 72%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'maya-blue': '#73C2FB',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-maya-blue: #73C2FB;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"maya-blue": {
"value": "#73C2FB",
"type": "color",
"description": "Maya Blue — #73C2FB"
}
}More blue colors
View all →What Does Maya Blue Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Evolutionary color psychology suggests blue's dominance traces to the sky and clean water—stable, expansive environments our ancestors associated with safety and resources. Maya Blue carries this ancient signal into contemporary design as professionalism, doing perceptual work before a single word is read.
- Across color psychology research, blue consistently tests high for "trustworthiness" associations, making Maya Blue a reliable vehicle for professionalism in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on blue-family tones to project stability and competence—values that Maya Blue communicates in a light key.
- At 94% saturation, Maya Blue reads as vivid—Electric and royal blues are modern, confident, and digitally native—they signal tech-forward positioning and work well for startups challenging traditional industries.
- Maya Blue's light lightness (72%) shifts its psychological register: Sky and powder blues feel open, airy, and emotionally approachable—softening corporate authority into friendliness; popular in consumer tech and digital wellness.
The power of Maya Blue is quiet consistency. It builds trust cumulatively, appearing wherever credibility matters.
How to Use Maya Blue in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
The design challenge with Maya Blue is differentiation: every major institution uses blue. The answer lies in tone, proportion, and pairing—how a specific blue is used matters more than whether it's used.
- Avoid: food contexts where it suppresses appetite (the only major color with no natural blue foods), extreme urgency signals, and applications targeting very young children where warmer colors perform better.
- Color harmonies: Maya Blue's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Maya Blue's vivid saturation (94%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.
- Maya Blue creates strong legibility with black text overlays (10.8:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
- Typography: Maya Blue as text requires a dark background; its 72% lightness means it provides 1.9:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
The power of Maya Blue is quiet consistency. It builds trust cumulatively, appearing wherever credibility matters.
Maya Blue Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Maya Blue (#73C2FB) achieves a 10.84:1 contrast ratio with black text, surpassing the WCAG 2.1 AAA threshold of 7:1. This exceptional contrast qualifies it for body text, UI components at any size, and all accessibility-sensitive interface contexts. Relative luminance: 49.2%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 1.94:1 — Fail
- As text on black (#000000): 10.84:1 — AAA ✓
- Best text color on Maya Blue background: Black (#000000) at 10.84:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 49.2% — above-median luminance—it reads as a light to mid-tone background, compatible with dark text while retaining color personality
- Maya Blue qualifies for all text sizes including small body copy (AAA).
- Color blindness consideration: tritanopia (blue-yellow color blindness, ~0.003% of population) may affect how this color reads. While rare, for maximum accessibility supplement color signals with text or icon indicators in critical states.
For production use, test Maya Blue against your specific background colors rather than assuming #FFFFFF or #000000 performance translates. Surrounding colors alter perceived contrast.
Maya Blue in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Maya Blue (#73C2FB) is most at home in industries where trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism are key brand values. Its light quality makes it particularly effective in Finance & Banking contexts, where the vivid saturation signals stability at exactly the right register.
- Finance & Banking: Blue is the most trusted color in financial services—a global design convention built over decades. It signals fiduciary reliability, stability, and the conservative stewardship that depositors and investors need to feel comfortable transferring wealth. (examples: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Visa) Dark navy communicates established tradition; mid-tone blues suggest accessible, modern banking. Avoid pure bright blue for legacy institutions.
- Technology: Technology brands use blue to communicate intelligence, reliability, and forward-thinking professionalism. From legacy enterprise software to consumer apps, blue provides a neutral credibility that scales across markets and cultures. (examples: Notion, Slack, Salesforce) Varying the tone of blue is how tech brands differentiate: sky blue for friendliness (consumer apps), royal blue for confidence (productivity tools), navy for enterprise seriousness.
- Healthcare: Healthcare's use of blue is a trust transfer from corporate credibility to clinical reliability. Patients associate blue with cleanliness, precision, and medical competence—making it the second most common healthcare color after white. (examples: CVS Health, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente) Teal-blue works particularly well for health tech and telemedicine, balancing clinical trust with digital accessibility.
- Brand positioning: Maya Blue is best suited for brands projecting trustworthiness, reliability, professionalism. Categories outside this positioning—food contexts where it suppresses appetite (the only major color with no natural blue foods)—tend to see weaker results.
- Adjacent applications: Beyond primary industries, Maya Blue works effectively in corporate identity, banking and finance UIs, healthcare platforms—contexts where stability serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Maya Blue performs best are those where the audience expects stability. Build brand strategy around this alignment, not against it.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Maya Blue? ▾
- The hex code for Maya Blue is #73C2FB. Its RGB values are rgb(115, 194, 251) and its HSL values are hsl(205, 94%, 72%).
- What does Maya Blue mean in design? ▾
- Blue is the world's most universally preferred color across cultures. It slows respiration, lowers blood pressure, and promotes calm — the physiological opposite of red. Blue's associations with sky and water make it feel limitless, trustworthy, and reliable. In corporate design, blue dominates banking, insurance, healthcare, and technology precisely because it communicates stability. Dark navy conveys authority and tradition; royal blues suggest quality and aspiration; sky blues feel open and optimistic; teal bridges trust with modernity. The primary limitation of blue is food — it suppresses appetite, with almost no naturally blue foods existing in nature. Its lighter value makes it approachable and soft — suitable for backgrounds, secondary UI states, and contexts requiring the hue's character without full intensity.
- Is Maya Blue WCAG accessible? ▾
- Maya Blue (#73C2FB) does not pass WCAG AA on white (1.94:1 ratio). Use it on dark backgrounds where it achieves 10.84:1. Its overall accessibility score is 48/100.
- What colors go well with Maya Blue? ▾
- Maya Blue pairs well with its complementary color Burnt Orange (#CC5500). Analogous colors like Pine Green and Sky Teal also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Maya Blue used for? ▾
- Maya Blue is commonly used for: Banking, insurance, and financial institutions; Healthcare and medical device companies; Enterprise software and SaaS platforms; Government and public sector organizations; Airlines and aviation brands.
- What are the CSS and Tailwind values for Maya Blue? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #73C2FB` or `background-color: #73C2FB`. The CSS custom property is `--color-maya-blue: #73C2FB`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#73C2FB]` for backgrounds or `text-[#73C2FB]` for text.