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Glowering Welsh Ultramarine

#1b2c8a
Notes

Glowering Welsh Ultramarine (#1B2C8A) is a deep blue with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (231°, 67%, 32%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#1b2c8a
RGB
rgb(27, 44, 138)
HSL
hsl(231, 67%, 32%)
HWB
hwb(231 11% 46%)
OKLCH
oklch(35.0% 0.156 268.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.1204 0.1708 0.5204)
HSV
hsv(231, 80%, 54%)
LAB
lab(23.23% 29.30 -53.96)
LCH
lch(23.23% 61.40 298.50)
CMYK
cmyk(80%, 68%, 0%, 46%)

Etymology

Glowering
adjective

Middle English gloweren, to stare angrily — present-participle of glower, sharing root with glower and gloom. As a color modifier, glowering implies a deep-and-warm-and-glowering-resentful quality, the dark warm-orange of furnace-mouth-and-Volcanic-vent embered glow. Sits at the deep-and-warm end of the grid, parallel to smouldered and hellish.

Welsh
modifier

Old English Wælisc, of-Wales. As a color modifier, welsh implies a Cymric-and-slate quality, the visual register of Welsh-Cymric hand-built slate-and-stone-and-Welsh-wool valley-and-mountain hand-spun-and-hand-quarried surfaces under Welsh-Cymric Snowdonia-and-Brecon-Beacons valley light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to celtic and scot in usage.

Ultramarine
noun

The pigment ground from lapis lazuli — the Afghan mineral imported through Venice in the late Middle Ages, more expensive by weight than gold during the Renaissance. The color refers to a freshly mixed ultramarine pigment in linseed oil: a saturated, slightly violet-shifted deep blue with the matte finish of micron-ground rock. Deeper than cobalt, cooler than royal, with the art-historical weight of the blue Vermeer reserved for Mary's robe.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

Click any swatch to explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#1b2c8a
Original
#003d8d
Protanopia
#003288
Deuteranopia
#004557
Tritanopia
#2f2f2f
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon White
11.84:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon Black
1.77:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##1B2C8A
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.1204 0.1708 0.5204)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.156

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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