A medium blue, black text passes AA
What color is steelblue?
steelblue is a medium blue: #4682b4 in hex, rgb(70 130 180). Black text on it reaches 5.11:1, passing WCAG AA. Recolor (recolor.page) shows it on a real page below.
Last updated
| Format | Value |
|---|---|
| Keyword | steelblue |
| Hex | #4682b4 |
| RGB | rgb(70 130 180) |
| HSL | hsl(207 44% 49%) |
| OKLCH | oklch(58.8% 0.099 245.7) |
| Nearest Tailwind color | cyan-600 #0092b8, 0.050 away in OKLab |
| White text | 4.11:1: AA fails, AAA fails, large text passes |
| Black text | 5.11:1: AA passes, AAA fails, large text passes |
About steelblue
In OKLCH terms steelblue has a lightness of 58.8%, a chroma of 0.099 and a hue of 245.7 degrees, a medium blue to the eye.
HSL calls its lightness 49%, OKLCH 58.8%: 10 points between a formula and a measure of what the eye sees. The nearest CSS named color, slategray (#708090), is 0.069 away in OKLab: related, but plainly a different color.
With black text, steelblue passes AA at 5.11:1. White text, at 4.11:1, does not. In the hue-sorted table of named colors it sits between slategray and royalblue.
In Tailwind CSS 4.3.3 the nearest default color is cyan-600 (#0092b8), 0.050 away in OKLab; for the exact color, an arbitrary value such as bg-[#4682b4] works.
Tints and shades
- #e0eaf3
- #c1d5e7
- #a2c0da
- #84abce
- #6696c1
- #4682b4
- #35658c
- #254967
- #152f44
- #071623
- #010307
From light to dark: 5 toward white and 5 toward black, mixed in OKLCH a sixth of the way at a time with the hue kept. A step that would repeat its neighbor is left out.
A palette around it
- #4682b4
- #cdecff
- #201913
- #dcc2ac
- #2f5068
Locked as the first of five swatches, steelblue gets #cdecff, #201913, #dcc2ac, #2f5068 from Recolor's generator, a complementary palette, built on the hue opposite. The seed is its hex, so the palette stays the same. Open it in Recolor.
Using steelblue
As a text color, steelblue on a black page gives the same 5.11:1.
.notice {
background-color: steelblue; /* #4682b4 */
color: black; /* 5.11:1 */
}Common questions
Does white text pass WCAG AA on steelblue?
No. White text measures 4.11:1 on steelblue, under AA's 4.5:1; black text measures 5.11:1 and passes.
Can steelblue be written in OKLCH?
Yes: oklch(58.8% 0.099 245.7), computed from #4682b4. A named color is an sRGB color, so its OKLCH value converts back to the same hex.
Is there a named color close to steelblue?
No. The nearest, slategray (#708090), is 0.069 away in OKLab, a different color.