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Loud Speedwell

#8a87ef
Notes

Loud Speedwell (#8A87EF) is a soft 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 (242°, 76%, 73%) places it in the highly saturated band at a light lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary yellow. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#8a87ef
RGB
rgb(138, 135, 239)
HSL
hsl(242, 76%, 73%)
HWB
hwb(242 53% 6%)
OKLCH
oklch(67.2% 0.151 282.8)
HSV
hsv(242, 44%, 94%)
LAB
lab(60.75% 26.62 -52.12)
LCH
lch(60.75% 58.53 297.05)
CMYK
cmyk(42%, 44%, 0%, 6%)

Etymology

Loud
adjective

Old English hlūd, making noise — borrowed metaphorically as a color word since the nineteenth century. Loud red, loud yellow: a color so saturated it announces itself without needing surrounding context. Sits in the bright-bucket extreme alongside electric and striking. Carries a slightly pejorative implication of excess.

Speedwell
noun

Veronica chamaedrys, the small-flowered creeping speedwell of European hedgerows and lawn margins — named speedwell in folk Latin for its old reputation as a wound-healing herb. The color refers to a fresh speedwell flower: a saturated, slightly violet-shifted bright blue with the matte finish of a small four-petaled bloom. Cooler than periwinkle, warmer than cornflower, with the wildflower weight of a plant most often noticed by accident in a lawn.

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

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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.

#8a87ef
Original
#6096f3
Protanopia
#5b8fed
Deuteranopia
#6b9caf
Tritanopia
#8f8f8f
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
3.09:1
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
6.79:1

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