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Cerulean Radiant Clear
Color detail

Cerulean Radiant Clear

Blue · Hue 190
Metrics
S 54% · L 54%
Contrast (WCAG)
on white2.4:1Failon black8.7:1AA
Save to journalSign in to saveStart palette from thisRecent trail

About this color

Cerulean Radiant Clear (#4AB4C9) belongs to the blue family — hue 190°, 54% saturation, 54% lightness. Copy the hex, RGB, or HSL value above, or paste the CSS custom property below into your stylesheet to reference this color directly.

CSS
:root {
  --colorarchive-cerulean-radiant-clear: #4AB4C9;
  --colorarchive-cerulean-radiant-clear-hsl: hsl(190, 54%, 54%);
  --colorarchive-cerulean-radiant-clear-rgb: rgb(74, 180, 201);
}

AI Color Names

Let AI suggest alternative poetic names for this color in English and Chinese.

Design Context

ProfessionalReliableFocused
Common in

Banking · Insurance · Enterprise Software

Pairs well with

White for clean authority, light orange for warm contrast, dark navy for depth

Design tip

The backbone of business interfaces. Use for primary actions and navigation. Blue links are the web's universal convention.

Cultural context ▶

Blue is the world's most popular color. It represents trust, competence, and stability across virtually all cultures.

Color Origins

Blue family

The most-loved color on the planet, and the most overused.

Heritage

Blue is one of the hardest colors for nature to make with pigment — and, historically, one of the most expensive to paint with. Ultramarine, ground from lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan, could cost as much as gold in Renaissance Europe; Vermeer used it lavishly. Egyptian blue (the first synthetic pigment, ~3000 BCE) was lost for centuries and rediscovered in the 19th. Prussian blue (1704) quickly gave painters a cheap alternative to ultramarine; Yves Klein's IKB (1960) re-aristocratized blue.

Across cultures

In ancient Egypt blue was the color of the Nile and the heavens — sacred, protective. In China blue-and-white porcelain (qinghua) defined export ceramics for centuries. In Mediterranean traditions blue wards off the evil eye. In America, IBM's blue logo helped earn it the nickname 'Big Blue'; in Japan, indigo (ai) is the centuries-old workwear dye that became the ground tone of an entire textile tradition. Across the world blue is consistently rated the most-liked color — in one ten-country survey it led every other color by 8 to 18 points.

In the wild

Mark Zuckerberg has said Facebook is blue because he is red-green colorblind. Levi's blue is the natural color of indigo on cotton. Twitter Blue (#1DA1F2) defined social-media blue for years before the 2023 rebrand to X scrapped it. The blue checkmark, the blue link, the blue 'send' button — blue has become the default color of digital trust, to the point of being a UX cliché.

How it reads

Blue tends to recede — the eye focuses blue light slightly in front of the retina, which can make blue elements feel deep or distant. It reads as trustworthy, calm, corporate, and (at the cool end) cold. Light blues read airy and clinical; mid blues are the default for tech and finance; deep blues read as luxurious or naval. The omnipresence of blue in software is real: most enterprise UIs reach for it because it offends the fewest stakeholders, which is also the reason it can feel like the absence of a real choice.

This particular tone

A confident mid-tone — this is the workhorse register of the hue, and the band where many brand colors live.

Lightness band: At mid-lightness the hue carries its full character. This is the band where many identity colors live: bright enough to be distinctive at small sizes, deep enough to sit cleanly on a white canvas.

Saturation band: The clear, mid-saturation register is a common identity sweet spot — saturated enough to register as a 'real' color, restrained enough not to fight typography or photography placed over it.

Brands using a similar color

Within the public brand-guidelines reference catalog, these are the closest matches to #4AB4C9.

  • Slackaccent
    Slack Blue · #36C5F0
    →
  • Anthropicaccent
    Anthropic Blue · #6A9BCC
    →
  • Supabaseprimary
    Supabase Green · #3ECF8E
    →

Cultures using a similar color

From the cultural-palette catalog, these regions feature a color close to #4AB4C9.

  • AustraliaReef Turquoise
    #3FBFB9 · Whitsunday lagoons
    →
  • Turkey (Istanbul)Bosphorus Turquoise
    #4DA8AC · Marmara strait water
    →
  • IcelandGlacial Cyan
    #75BBC1 · Vatnajökull ice cave light
    →

Color guides

Go deeper on using blue and color in design.

Color PsychologyBlue Color Psychology in Branding: Why Every Bank and Tech Giant Chooses BlueHistoryIndigo: The Color That Built Trade Routes and Made Blue CheapColor TheorySeasonal Color Analysis Guide: Understanding Your Personal Color Season

Tonal strip

All lightness levels at this hue and saturation. Click any to navigate.

Palette moves

Instead of stopping at one swatch, use nearby, opposite, and tonal neighbors to branch into a broader palette.

Lighter companion
Cerulean Tone Clear
#62BED0 · hsl(190, 54%, 60%)
Darker companion
Cerulean Core Clear
#38A6BC · hsl(190, 54%, 48%)
Complementary counterpoint
Ruby Radiant Clear
#C95F4A · hsl(10, 54%, 54%)
Analogous lead
Sapphire Radiant Clear
#4A8AC9 · hsl(210, 54%, 54%)
Analogous echo
Lagoon Radiant Clear
#4AC9B4 · hsl(170, 54%, 54%)
Triadic +120°
Peony Radiant Clear
#C94AB4 · hsl(310, 54%, 54%)
Triadic +240°
Honey Radiant Clear
#B4C94A · hsl(70, 54%, 54%)
Split-comp +150°
Garnet Radiant Clear
#C94A75 · hsl(340, 54%, 54%)
Split-comp +210°
Apricot Radiant Clear
#C99F4A · hsl(40, 54%, 54%)
Export preview
Base: Cerulean Radiant Clear #4AB4C9
Lighter companion: Cerulean Tone Clear #62BED0
Darker companion: Cerulean Core Clear #38A6BC
Complementary counterpoint: Ruby Radiant Clear #C95F4A
Analogous lead: Sapphire Radiant Clear #4A8AC9
Analogous echo: Lagoon Radiant Clear #4AC9B4
Triadic +120°: Peony Radiant Clear #C94AB4
Triadic +240°: Honey Radiant Clear #B4C94A
Split-comp +150°: Garnet Radiant Clear #C94A75
Split-comp +210°: Apricot Radiant Clear #C99F4A

Compare

See how Cerulean Radiant Clear compares side by side with related colors.

vsCerulean Tone ClearvsCerulean Core ClearvsRuby Radiant ClearvsSapphire Radiant ClearvsLagoon Radiant ClearvsPeony Radiant Clear

Nearest neighbors

The closest archive matches by hue, saturation, and lightness.

Search by hex
Nearby match
Cerulean Core Clear
#38A6BC · hsl(190, 54%, 48%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Tone Clear
#62BED0 · hsl(190, 54%, 60%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Velvet Clear
#3192A5 · hsl(190, 54%, 42%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Radiant Soft
#62A4B2 · hsl(190, 34%, 54%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Radiant Vivid
#33C4E1 · hsl(190, 74%, 54%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Silk Clear
#81CBD9 · hsl(190, 54%, 68%)

Accessible pairings

Archive colors that meet WCAG contrast standards when paired with this color. Use as text-on-background or background-on-text.

Contrast checker
AAA7:1
Crimson Ink Clear
#371010
AAA7.1:1
Mulberry Ink Clear
#2A1037
AAA7.1:1
Mulberry Ink Vivid
#2D093E
AAA7.1:1
Mulberry Ink Bright
#2E0642
AAA7.1:1
Mulberry Ink Pure
#2F0345
AAA7.2:1
Plum Ink Clear
#241037

Color Vision Simulation

How this color appears with different color vision deficiencies.

Full simulator
Deuteranopia
#7F77C3
Protanopia
#8686C4
Tritanopia
#54C0BF
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Saturation ladder

Same hue and lightness, from gray to pure

Search
Cerulean Radiant Faint#7E9295 · hsl(190, 10%, 54%)Cerulean Radiant Muted#75989F · hsl(190, 18%, 54%)Cerulean Radiant Dust#6B9EA8 · hsl(190, 26%, 54%)Cerulean Radiant Soft#62A4B2 · hsl(190, 34%, 54%)Cerulean Radiant Clear#4AB4C9 · hsl(190, 54%, 54%)Cerulean Radiant Vivid#33C4E1 · hsl(190, 74%, 54%)Cerulean Radiant Bright#27CBEC · hsl(190, 84%, 54%)Cerulean Radiant Pure#1ED2F6 · hsl(190, 92%, 54%)
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