Smouldered Blueprint
Smouldered Blueprint (#1B3E79) is a deep azure 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 (218°, 64%, 29%) 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.
Etymology
From Old English smolderian, to burn slowly — past-participle of smoulder. As a color modifier, smouldered implies the deep glowing-dark quality of fire-warmed embers, where the underlying hue retains warmth even at low lightness. Sits at the deep-and-warm end of the grid, somewhere between charred and burnt.
The cyanotype reproduction process — invented by John Herschel in 1842 — used for architectural and engineering drawings until digital reproduction replaced it in the late twentieth century. Blueprint color refers to a fresh cyanotype print: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the matte finish of iron-cyanide-on-paper.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.
Wide gamut
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.
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.