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Poised Glauque

#238ccb
Notes

Poised Glauque (#238CCB) is a true azure with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (203°, 71%, 47%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#238ccb
RGB
rgb(35, 140, 203)
HSL
hsl(203, 71%, 47%)
HWB
hwb(203 14% 20%)
OKLCH
oklch(61.3% 0.131 241.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2726 0.5411 0.7754)
HSV
hsv(203, 83%, 80%)
LAB
lab(55.51% -6.68 -40.60)
LCH
lch(55.51% 41.15 260.66)
CMYK
cmyk(83%, 31%, 0%, 20%)

Etymology

Poised
adjective

Old French peser, to weigh — past-participle of poise. As a color modifier, poised implies a saturated-and-balanced-and-confident quality where the hue holds its position with elegant equilibrium. Sits at the bold-and-confident end of the grid, parallel to centered and composed.

Glauque
noun

The French adjective for gray-blue-green — borrowed from the Greek glaukos, the epithet of the goddess Athena's eyes (glaukōpis). Used in French color vocabulary for the cold gray-blue of stormy seas and aged metal patina. The color refers to a cold Atlantic morning at Pointe du Raz: a soft, slightly cool deep gray-blue-green.

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.

#238ccb
Original
#6e8dce
Protanopia
#577eca
Deuteranopia
#009ca2
Tritanopia
#7a7a7a
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).
AA Largeon White
3.69:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
5.69:1

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
##238CCB
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2726 0.5411 0.7754)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.131

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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