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Pleasant Logwood

#5a5f8b
Notes

Pleasant Logwood (#5A5F8B) is a true blue 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 (234°, 21%, 45%) places it in the muted 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 amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#5a5f8b
RGB
rgb(90, 95, 139)
HSL
hsl(234, 21%, 45%)
HWB
hwb(234 35% 45%)
OKLCH
oklch(50.0% 0.070 278.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3565 0.3719 0.5322)
HSV
hsv(234, 35%, 55%)
LAB
lab(41.57% 9.27 -24.98)
LCH
lch(41.57% 26.65 290.36)
CMYK
cmyk(35%, 32%, 0%, 45%)

Etymology

Pleasant
adjective

From the French plaisant, pleasing — used as a color modifier since the fifteenth century for hues that read as agreeable, the kind of color that wears well over a long viewing without becoming demanding or fatiguing. Pleasant green, pleasant rose: moderate saturation combined with optical comfort. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside easy and calm.

Logwood
noun

Central American Haematoxylum campechianum — a tropical legume tree native to Yucatán and Belize, whose heartwood was the colonial-era principal source of haematein and hematoxylin dyes (also used for histology staining). Logwood color refers to a freshly logwood-mordant-dyed wool: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the matte finish of haematein-on-iron-mordanted woolen fiber. Also the campeche of European calligraphy ink.

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.

#5a5f8b
Original
#51648d
Protanopia
#4f608a
Deuteranopia
#4d676f
Tritanopia
#616161
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).
AAon White
6.10:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon Black
3.44:1

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
##5A5F8B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3565 0.3719 0.5322)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.070

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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