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Settled Ai

#74b9ea
Notes

Settled Ai (#74B9EA) 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 (205°, 74%, 69%) 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
#74b9ea
RGB
rgb(116, 185, 234)
HSL
hsl(205, 74%, 69%)
HWB
hwb(205 45% 8%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.9% 0.099 240.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5166 0.7185 0.8999)
HSV
hsv(205, 50%, 92%)
LAB
lab(72.46% -8.49 -31.14)
LCH
lch(72.46% 32.27 254.74)
CMYK
cmyk(50%, 21%, 0%, 8%)

Etymology

Settled
adjective

The past participle of settle, to come to rest — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as stabilized after a process. Settled green, settled brown: moderate saturation combined with optical permanence. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside steady and composed.

Ai
noun

The Japanese word for indigo — both the Persicaria tinctoria dye plant and the saturated deep blue color it produces. Ai-iro (藍色) is the foundational textile color of pre-modern Japan, dyeing the aizome cotton of farmer dress and samurai underrobes. The color refers to a freshly ai-dyed cotton: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the matte finish of plant-and-mordant dye.

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.

#74b9ea
Original
#a3b9ec
Protanopia
#94ace9
Deuteranopia
#34c5c9
Tritanopia
#aeaeae
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
2.13:1
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
9.87:1

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
##74B9EA
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5166 0.7185 0.8999)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.099

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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