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Aligned Iconography

#aca9e1
Notes

Aligned Iconography (#ACA9E1) 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 (243°, 48%, 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
#aca9e1
RGB
rgb(172, 169, 225)
HSL
hsl(243, 48%, 77%)
HWB
hwb(243 66% 12%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.7% 0.080 286.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6724 0.6631 0.8658)
HSV
hsv(243, 25%, 88%)
LAB
lab(71.27% 12.92 -27.78)
LCH
lch(71.27% 30.64 294.94)
CMYK
cmyk(24%, 25%, 0%, 12%)

Etymology

Aligned
adjective

French à-ligne, to-line-up — past-participle of align. As a color modifier, aligned implies a clear-and-axis-coordinated quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-parallel-arranged elements. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to symmetrical and squared in usage.

Iconography
noun

Greek eikonographia, image-writing — adopted into Western art history as the technical term for image-symbolism, particularly the deep-violet-and-gold Russian-school and Greek-school religious panels of Theotokos (Mother of God) icons. Iconography color refers to a Russian-school Theotokos of Vladimir icon's deep-blue robe field: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the matte finish of egg-tempera-bound ultramarine over gesso.

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.

#aca9e1
Original
#9bb0e3
Protanopia
#9aade0
Deuteranopia
#a0b3bc
Tritanopia
#aeaeae
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
2.21:1
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
9.52:1

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
##ACA9E1
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6724 0.6631 0.8658)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.080

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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