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Effective Antibes

#81a5bf
Notes

Effective Antibes (#81A5BF) 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°, 33%, 63%) 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
#81a5bf
RGB
rgb(129, 165, 191)
HSL
hsl(205, 33%, 63%)
HWB
hwb(205 51% 25%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.5% 0.055 239.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5345 0.6430 0.7389)
HSV
hsv(205, 32%, 75%)
LAB
lab(66.01% -5.99 -17.32)
LCH
lch(66.01% 18.33 250.93)
CMYK
cmyk(32%, 14%, 0%, 25%)

Etymology

Effective
adjective

Latin effectīvus, productive — adjectival suffix -ive. As a color modifier, effective implies a clear-and-purpose-achieving quality where the hue carries the visual register of successful-task-completion design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and useful in usage.

Antibes
noun

The French Riviera town between Cannes and Nice — and the saturated deep blue of the Côte d'Azur between Cap d'Antibes and the harbor. Antibes color refers to Cap d'Antibes sea water at midday: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the optical clarity of warm Mediterranean coast.

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.

#81a5bf
Original
#9aa4c0
Protanopia
#929dbf
Deuteranopia
#6dacad
Tritanopia
#9f9f9f
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
2.60:1
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
8.07:1

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
##81A5BF
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5345 0.6430 0.7389)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.055

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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