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Reliable Morningglory

#a4d9fa
Notes

Reliable Morningglory (#A4D9FA) is a soft azure with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (203°, 90%, 81%) 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 orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a4d9fa
RGB
rgb(164, 217, 250)
HSL
hsl(203, 90%, 81%)
HWB
hwb(203 64% 2%)
OKLCH
oklch(86.0% 0.071 236.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6861 0.8451 0.9672)
HSV
hsv(203, 34%, 98%)
LAB
lab(84.18% -9.26 -21.57)
LCH
lch(84.18% 23.47 246.77)
CMYK
cmyk(34%, 13%, 0%, 2%)

Etymology

Reliable
adjective

Latin re-ligāre, to bind back — adjectival suffix -able. As a color modifier, reliable implies a clear-and-trustworthy-and-consistent quality where the hue carries the visual register of dependable-and-consistent design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to dependable and trustworthy in usage.

Morningglory
noun

The family Convolvulaceae — particularly Ipomoea purpurea, the climbing annual whose blue-purple morning-blooming trumpet flowers close by midday. The color refers to a fresh Ipomoea flower in early morning: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the satin finish of single-day trumpet bloom.

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.

#a4d9fa
Original
#cad7fc
Protanopia
#becef9
Deuteranopia
#87e2e4
Tritanopia
#d0d0d0
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
1.51:1
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
13.88:1

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
##A4D9FA
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6861 0.8451 0.9672)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.071

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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