Stoical Cement
Stoical Cement (#5D5648) is a deep amber 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 (40°, 13%, 32%) places it in the muted 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Greek stōikós, of-the-Stoa — adjectival suffix -al. As a color modifier, stoical implies a neutral-and-restrained-and-unaffected quality, the neutral color of Stoic-philosophical and Spartan-school unaffected-and-stripped-down formal-but-unaffected color-decision. Sits at the neutral-and-restrained end of the grid, parallel to stoic and reserved in usage.
Portland cement — a powdered binder of calcium silicate, alumina, and iron, mixed with water and aggregate to make concrete. Patented by Joseph Aspdin of Leeds in 1824 and named for its resemblance to Isle of Portland limestone. The color refers to dry Portland cement powder: a soft, slightly muted pale gray with the powdery finish of micron-ground mineral. Cooler than stone, warmer than dust.
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.
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.