colors
Back to gallery

Buried Grace Midnight

#251a72
Notes

Buried Grace Midnight (#251A72) 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 (248°, 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
#251a72
RGB
rgb(37, 26, 114)
HSL
hsl(248, 63%, 27%)
HWB
hwb(248 10% 55%)
OKLCH
oklch(30.1% 0.142 279.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.1384 0.1037 0.4292)
HSV
hsv(248, 77%, 45%)
LAB
lab(17.21% 33.18 -48.61)
LCH
lch(17.21% 58.85 304.32)
CMYK
cmyk(68%, 77%, 0%, 55%)

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.

Grace
modifier

Latin gratia, favor-or-thankfulness. As a color modifier, grace implies a flowing-and-elegant-and-blessed quality, the visual register of Botticelli-Three-Graces-and-Apollonian-grace hand-flowing-and-elegant-and-blessed Botticelli-Three-Graces-and-Apollonian-and-Renaissance-classical graced-and-flowing-and-elegant-and-blessed surfaces under Botticelli-Three-Graces-and-Apollonian-and-Renaissance-classical chiton-and-laurel-wreath-and-fountain Florentine-pavilion-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to charm and bliss 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.

#251a72
Original
#002e75
Protanopia
#002770
Deuteranopia
#003344
Tritanopia
#232323
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
14.29:1
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
1.47:1

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
##251A72
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.1384 0.1037 0.4292)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.142

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.

Related Colors

Canvas