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Modulated Crepuscule

#878dab
Notes

Modulated Crepuscule (#878DAB) 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 (230°, 18%, 60%) places it in the muted 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
#878dab
RGB
rgb(135, 141, 171)
HSL
hsl(230, 18%, 60%)
HWB
hwb(230 53% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(64.9% 0.045 276.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5337 0.5522 0.6608)
HSV
hsv(230, 21%, 67%)
LAB
lab(59.10% 4.41 -16.49)
LCH
lch(59.10% 17.07 284.98)
CMYK
cmyk(21%, 18%, 0%, 33%)

Etymology

Modulated
adjective

Latin modulātus, measured / regulated — past-participle of modulate. As a color modifier, modulated implies a hushed-and-tone-adjusted-and-controlled quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-tone-adjusted-and-eased color treatment. Sits at the hushed-and-restrained end of the grid, parallel to restrained and tempered in usage.

Crepuscule
noun

Latin crepusculum, twilight — adopted into French and English for the precise civil-twilight half-hour between sunset and nightfall. Crepuscule color refers to a clear-sky eastern anti-solar horizon at civil crepuscule (twelve minutes after sundown): a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the optical complexity of Rayleigh-scattered Belt of Venus light against the deepening Earth shadow.

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.

#878dab
Original
#8590ac
Protanopia
#838daa
Deuteranopia
#7f9297
Tritanopia
#8e8e8e
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
3.27:1
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
6.43:1

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
##878DAB
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5337 0.5522 0.6608)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.045

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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