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Buried Spark Midnight

#1d196f
Notes

Buried Spark Midnight (#1D196F) 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 (243°, 63%, 27%) 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 yellow. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#1d196f
RGB
rgb(29, 25, 111)
HSL
hsl(243, 63%, 27%)
HWB
hwb(243 10% 56%)
OKLCH
oklch(29.0% 0.141 275.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.1111 0.0986 0.4178)
HSV
hsv(243, 77%, 44%)
LAB
lab(16.02% 31.77 -48.64)
LCH
lch(16.02% 58.10 303.15)
CMYK
cmyk(74%, 77%, 0%, 56%)

Etymology

Buried
adjective

Old English byrgan, to inter — past-participle of bury. As a color modifier, buried implies the deep-shrouded darkness of a sealed-and-covered hue, where surface qualities are obscured by intervening material. Sits at the deep-and-obscured end of the grid, parallel to cloaked and entombed.

Spark
modifier

Old English spearca, small-ember. As a color modifier, spark implies a small-bright-and-flying-ember quality, the visual register of blacksmith-anvil-and-bonfire-spark hand-small-bright-and-flying-ember blacksmith-anvil-and-bonfire-and-flint-strike sparked-and-small-bright-and-flying surfaces under blacksmith-anvil-and-bonfire-and-flint-strike orange-glow-and-iron-and-flint forge-and-hearth-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to flash and flare in usage.

Midnight
noun

The color of the sky at midnight on a clear, moonless night, far from city lights — almost black, but with a slight blue cast where star-scattered light reaches the eye. The color refers to that exact moment: a very deep, slightly violet-shifted near-black blue with the optical depth of a sky stripped of every direct light source. Deeper than navy, warmer than ink, with the temporal weight of a name that is a precise hour as well as a color.

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.

#1d196f
Original
#002c72
Protanopia
#00246d
Deuteranopia
#003242
Tritanopia
#202020
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
14.78:1
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
1.42:1

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
##1D196F
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.1111 0.0986 0.4178)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.141

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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