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Cerulean Tone Soft
Color detail

Cerulean Tone Soft

Blue · Hue 190
Metrics
S 34% · L 60%
Contrast (WCAG)
on white2.4:1Failon black8.7:1AA
Save to journalSign in to saveStart palette from thisRecent trail

About this color

Cerulean Tone Soft (#76B0BC) belongs to the blue family — hue 190°, 34% saturation, 60% 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-tone-soft: #76B0BC;
  --colorarchive-cerulean-tone-soft-hsl: hsl(190, 34%, 60%);
  --colorarchive-cerulean-tone-soft-rgb: rgb(118, 176, 188);
}

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 #76B0BC.

  • Anthropicaccent
    Anthropic Blue · #6A9BCC
    →
  • Redditsecondary
    Periwinkle · #7193FF
    →
  • Supabaseprimary
    Supabase Green · #3ECF8E
    →

Cultures using a similar color

From the cultural-palette catalog, these regions feature a color close to #76B0BC.

  • MoroccoChefchaouen Blue
    #7BAFD4 · Painted medina walls (Rif mountains)
    →
  • IcelandGlacial Cyan
    #75BBC1 · Vatnajökull ice cave light
    →
  • Korea (Obangsaek)Celadon-Goryeo Green
    #7CA38E · Goryeo Dynasty ceramics, 12th-13th c.
    →

Color guides

Go deeper on using blue and color in design.

HistoryIndigo: The Color That Built Trade Routes and Made Blue CheapBrand & MarketingTechnology Brand Color Design: Trust, Intelligence, and the Blue ProblemColor TheoryMastering Color Saturation: When to Be Bold and When to Pull Back

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 Silk Soft
#92C0C9 · hsl(190, 34%, 68%)
Darker companion
Cerulean Radiant Soft
#62A4B2 · hsl(190, 34%, 54%)
Complementary counterpoint
Ruby Tone Soft
#BC8276 · hsl(10, 34%, 60%)
Analogous lead
Sapphire Tone Soft
#7699BC · hsl(210, 34%, 60%)
Analogous echo
Lagoon Tone Soft
#76BCB0 · hsl(170, 34%, 60%)
Triadic +120°
Peony Tone Soft
#BC76B0 · hsl(310, 34%, 60%)
Triadic +240°
Honey Tone Soft
#B0BC76 · hsl(70, 34%, 60%)
Split-comp +150°
Garnet Tone Soft
#BC768D · hsl(340, 34%, 60%)
Split-comp +210°
Apricot Tone Soft
#BCA576 · hsl(40, 34%, 60%)
Export preview
Base: Cerulean Tone Soft #76B0BC
Lighter companion: Cerulean Silk Soft #92C0C9
Darker companion: Cerulean Radiant Soft #62A4B2
Complementary counterpoint: Ruby Tone Soft #BC8276
Analogous lead: Sapphire Tone Soft #7699BC
Analogous echo: Lagoon Tone Soft #76BCB0
Triadic +120°: Peony Tone Soft #BC76B0
Triadic +240°: Honey Tone Soft #B0BC76
Split-comp +150°: Garnet Tone Soft #BC768D
Split-comp +210°: Apricot Tone Soft #BCA576

Compare

See how Cerulean Tone Soft compares side by side with related colors.

vsCerulean Silk SoftvsCerulean Radiant SoftvsRuby Tone SoftvsSapphire Tone SoftvsLagoon Tone SoftvsPeony Tone Soft

Nearest neighbors

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

Search by hex
Nearby match
Cerulean Tone Dust
#7EABB4 · hsl(190, 26%, 60%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Radiant Soft
#62A4B2 · hsl(190, 34%, 54%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Silk Soft
#92C0C9 · hsl(190, 34%, 68%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Tone Muted
#87A5AB · hsl(190, 18%, 60%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Radiant Dust
#6B9EA8 · hsl(190, 26%, 54%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Core Soft
#5196A4 · hsl(190, 34%, 48%)

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
Crimson Ink Vivid
#3E0909
AAA7:1
Merlot Ink Clear
#371017
AAA7:1
Merlot Ink Vivid
#3E0912
AAA7.1:1
Mulberry Ink Clear
#2A1037
AAA7.1:1
Mulberry Ink Vivid
#2D093E

Color Vision Simulation

How this color appears with different color vision deficiencies.

Full simulator
Deuteranopia
#8F8BB9
Protanopia
#9393B9
Tritanopia
#7AB7B6
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Saturation ladder

Same hue and lightness, from gray to pure

Search
Cerulean Tone Faint#8FA0A3 · hsl(190, 10%, 60%)Cerulean Tone Muted#87A5AB · hsl(190, 18%, 60%)Cerulean Tone Dust#7EABB4 · hsl(190, 26%, 60%)Cerulean Tone Soft#76B0BC · hsl(190, 34%, 60%)Cerulean Tone Clear#62BED0 · hsl(190, 54%, 60%)Cerulean Tone Vivid#4ECBE4 · hsl(190, 74%, 60%)Cerulean Tone Bright#43D2EF · hsl(190, 84%, 60%)Cerulean Tone Pure#3BD8F7 · hsl(190, 92%, 60%)
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