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Stable Allium

#a3a5e6
Notes

Stable Allium (#A3A5E6) 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 (238°, 57%, 77%) 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 yellow. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a3a5e6
RGB
rgb(163, 165, 230)
HSL
hsl(238, 57%, 77%)
HWB
hwb(238 64% 10%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.4% 0.093 282.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6406 0.6468 0.8829)
HSV
hsv(238, 29%, 90%)
LAB
lab(69.76% 13.70 -32.90)
LCH
lch(69.76% 35.64 292.61)
CMYK
cmyk(29%, 28%, 0%, 10%)

Etymology

Stable
adjective

Latin stabilis, standing-firm — sharing root with stand. As a color modifier, stable implies a clear-and-firm-and-unchanging quality where the hue carries the visual register of resistant-to-modulation-and-fade pigmentation. Sits at the crisp-and-firm end of the grid, parallel to steady and settled in usage.

Allium
noun

Ornamental onion (Allium christophii, A. giganteum, A. aflatunense) — Central Asian native bulbs cultivated as architectural early-summer perennials with spherical umbels on bare stems. Allium color refers to a fully bloomed A. christophii umbel: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the matte finish of dense radiating six-tepalled florets. The architectural allium globe drifted into mid-20th-century cottage-garden style via Beth Chatto.

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.

#a3a5e6
Original
#93ade9
Protanopia
#90a8e4
Deuteranopia
#92b1bc
Tritanopia
#a9a9a9
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
2.31:1
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
9.08:1

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
##A3A5E6
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6406 0.6468 0.8829)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.093

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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