colors
Back to gallery

Modest Stockholm

#73b7e5
Notes

Modest Stockholm (#73B7E5) is a true azure 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 (204°, 69%, 67%) 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
#73b7e5
RGB
rgb(115, 183, 229)
HSL
hsl(204, 69%, 67%)
HWB
hwb(204 45% 10%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.2% 0.096 239.4)
HSV
hsv(204, 50%, 90%)
LAB
lab(71.67% -9.08 -29.65)
LCH
lch(71.67% 31.01 252.98)
CMYK
cmyk(50%, 20%, 0%, 10%)

Etymology

Modest
adjective

Latin modestus, moderate — used as a color modifier since the sixteenth century for hues that read as understated and unwilling to claim more visual space than they need. Modest taupe, modest beige: moderate-to-low saturation combined with optical restraint. Sits at the crisp-and-quiet edge of the grid alongside quiet and plain.

Stockholm
noun

The Swedish capital — and the deep blue of the Stockholm archipelago (24,000 islands) lagoon water and Drottningholm Palace azure interiors. Stockholm color refers to mid-depth Baltic archipelago water at Sandhamn: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the optical depth of cold-temperate brackish water.

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.

#73b7e5
Original
#a3b6e7
Protanopia
#93aae4
Deuteranopia
#37c3c6
Tritanopia
#acacac
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
2.18:1
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
9.63:1

Related Colors

Canvas