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Organized Aether

#85b4e5
Notes

Organized Aether (#85B4E5) is a soft 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 (211°, 65%, 71%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. 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
#85b4e5
RGB
rgb(133, 180, 229)
HSL
hsl(211, 65%, 71%)
HWB
hwb(211 52% 10%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.5% 0.087 250.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5601 0.7007 0.8811)
HSV
hsv(211, 42%, 90%)
LAB
lab(71.75% -3.11 -29.45)
LCH
lch(71.75% 29.61 263.96)
CMYK
cmyk(42%, 21%, 0%, 10%)

Etymology

Organized
adjective

Greek órganon, instrument / tool — past-participle of organize. As a color modifier, organized implies a clear-and-coordinated-and-systematic quality where the hue carries the visual register of well-coordinated-and-classified arrangement. Sits at the crisp-and-orderly end of the grid, parallel to orderly and methodical in usage.

Aether
noun

The classical Greek upper atmosphere — the saturated deep blue beyond the lower air, where the gods dwelt in Homeric and Hesiodic cosmology. The fifth Aristotelian element. Aether color refers to the upper-atmospheric blue at high-altitude horizon: a saturated, slightly cool very deep blue with the optical depth of long atmospheric column.

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.

#85b4e5
Original
#a1b5e7
Protanopia
#95abe4
Deuteranopia
#61bfc4
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
2.17:1
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
9.66:1

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
##85B4E5
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5601 0.7007 0.8811)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.087

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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