How do I actually create a custom UISearchBar? - swift

Question

I have been banging my head against a wall for a day now trying to figure out how to create a custom UISearchBar so I can get rid of the stock black search bar UIKit thinks I want. I've tried a few 'solutions':
1. Customizing the appearance in the AppDelegate
//default background color for search bars
UISearchBar.appearance(whenContainedInInstancesOf: [UISearchController.self]).tintColor = UIColor(hexString: "#394C53")
This didn't work
2. Subclassing UISearchController and UISearchBar
I followed this tutorial which didn't work
3. Looping through subviews
let results = DestinationSearchResultsTableViewController()
results.mapView = map
results.handleMapSearchDelegate = self
destinationSearch = UISearchController(searchResultsController: results)
destinationSearch!.searchBar.placeholder = "Where do you want to go?"
if #available(iOS 11, *) {
navigationItem.searchController = destinationSearch
if let textfield = destinationSearch!.searchBar.value(forKey: "searchField") as? UITextField {
if let backgroundview = textfield.subviews.first {
// Below is not what I want but it works
backgroundview.backgroundColor = UIColor.white
backgroundview.layer.cornerRadius = 10
backgroundview.clipsToBounds = true;
}
}
} else {
self.navigationController?.pushViewController(destinationSearch!, animated: true)
}
destinationSearch!.delegate = self
destinationSearch!.searchResultsUpdater = results as UISearchResultsUpdating
This actually kinda works. It works really well if I use the UIColor predefined colors like UIColor.white UIColor.red etc. but it works really terribly if I want to use a specific color like this: I tried using RGB and hex representations of the color above, but all I get is black.
Here is what I want:
I want to create my own UISearchBar with a left-aligned label and content textfield to the right as I have shown above.
Thanks