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Practical Gin

#6d80bb
Notes

Practical Gin (#6D80BB) is a true blue with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (225°, 36%, 58%) 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 amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#6d80bb
RGB
rgb(109, 128, 187)
HSL
hsl(225, 36%, 58%)
HWB
hwb(225 43% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(60.9% 0.093 269.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4418 0.4997 0.7157)
HSV
hsv(225, 42%, 73%)
LAB
lab(54.32% 8.45 -33.16)
LCH
lch(54.32% 34.21 284.29)
CMYK
cmyk(42%, 32%, 0%, 27%)

Etymology

Practical
adjective

Greek praktikós, practical — adjectival suffix -al. As a color modifier, practical implies a clear-and-purpose-fit-and-everyday quality where the hue carries the visual register of Shaker-and-Quaker utilitarian-and-functional everyday-life craft. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to functional and workmanlike in usage.

Gin
noun

The juniper-flavored distilled spirit — and the saturated deep blue of Bombay Sapphire-bottle glass and Hendrick's-style apothecary-style packaging. Gin color refers to a fresh-poured gin bottle in a bar light: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the high gloss of dyed glass.

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.

#6d80bb
Original
#6c86bd
Protanopia
#647fba
Deuteranopia
#538c95
Tritanopia
#808080
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).
AA Largeon White
3.85:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
5.46:1

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
##6D80BB
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4418 0.4997 0.7157)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.093

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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