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Plumb Brunnera

#56a1dd
Notes

Plumb Brunnera (#56A1DD) 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 (207°, 67%, 60%) 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
#56a1dd
RGB
rgb(86, 161, 221)
HSL
hsl(207, 67%, 60%)
HWB
hwb(207 34% 13%)
OKLCH
oklch(68.6% 0.116 244.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4098 0.6243 0.8465)
HSV
hsv(207, 61%, 87%)
LAB
lab(63.91% -5.40 -37.39)
LCH
lch(63.91% 37.78 261.78)
CMYK
cmyk(61%, 27%, 0%, 13%)

Etymology

Plumb
adjective

Latin plumbum, lead — referring to the lead-weighted plumb-line of pre-modern carpentry. As a color modifier, plumb implies a clear-and-vertical-true quality where the hue carries the visual register of gravity-aligned-and-perfectly-vertical surface. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to level and squared in usage.

Brunnera
noun

The genus BrunneraSiberian bugloss, the shade-garden perennial whose forget-me-not-style flowers appear in early spring. B. macrophylla 'Jack Frost' has silver-marbled foliage prized in shade gardens. The color refers to a fresh brunnera flower spike: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the matte finish of small five-petaled flower.

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.

#56a1dd
Original
#87a2e0
Protanopia
#7495dc
Deuteranopia
#00afb6
Tritanopia
#959595
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).
Failon White
2.79:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
7.54:1

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
##56A1DD
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4098 0.6243 0.8465)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.116

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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