colors
Back to gallery

Sure Konpeki

#9fb5d9
Notes

Sure Konpeki (#9FB5D9) 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 (217°, 43%, 74%) 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 amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#9fb5d9
RGB
rgb(159, 181, 217)
HSL
hsl(217, 43%, 74%)
HWB
hwb(217 62% 15%)
OKLCH
oklch(76.9% 0.057 260.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6400 0.7072 0.8385)
HSV
hsv(217, 27%, 85%)
LAB
lab(73.17% 0.49 -20.59)
LCH
lch(73.17% 20.60 271.37)
CMYK
cmyk(27%, 17%, 0%, 15%)

Etymology

Sure
adjective

Old French seur, certain — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as confident and stable. Sure red, sure blue: moderate saturation combined with optical commitment. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside steady and true.

Konpeki
noun

Japanese konpeki (紺碧) — the saturated deep azure of clear ocean and sky. The compound combines kon (deep blue) and heki (jade-blue), naming a color deeper than aozora and brighter than ruri. The color refers to konpeki-painted Edo-period folding screens: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the matte finish of pigment in tempera.

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.

#9fb5d9
Original
#a9b7db
Protanopia
#a3b1d8
Deuteranopia
#8fbcc1
Tritanopia
#b3b3b3
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
2.08:1
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
10.09:1

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
##9FB5D9
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6400 0.7072 0.8385)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.057

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.

Related Colors

Canvas