Submerged Trafalgar
Submerged Trafalgar (#253B69) is a deep azure with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (221°, 48%, 28%) 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
Latin sub-mergere, to plunge under — past-participle of submerge. As a color modifier, submerged implies the cool, deep, slightly-shifted quality of a hue viewed through a layer of water or glass. Sits at the deep-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to drowned and sunken in usage.
The Cape Trafalgar headland off southern Spain — site of the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar (Nelson's decisive naval victory over Napoleon's fleet). Trafalgar color refers to the deep blue of HMS Victory's preserved hull paint at Portsmouth: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the matte finish of period-correct marine paint.
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.