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Easy Sapporo

#b5a8ec
Notes

Easy Sapporo (#B5A8EC) is a soft indigo with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (251°, 64%, 79%) 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
#b5a8ec
RGB
rgb(181, 168, 236)
HSL
hsl(251, 64%, 79%)
HWB
hwb(251 66% 7%)
OKLCH
oklch(76.7% 0.097 292.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7011 0.6606 0.9063)
HSV
hsv(251, 29%, 93%)
LAB
lab(72.15% 18.75 -32.37)
LCH
lch(72.15% 37.40 300.08)
CMYK
cmyk(23%, 29%, 0%, 7%)

Etymology

Easy
adjective

Old French aisié, comfortable, at rest — used as a color modifier since the eighteenth century for hues that read as visually undemanding. Easy beige, easy gray: moderate saturation combined with optical restfulness. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside calm and settled.

Sapporo
noun

Capital of Japan's Hokkaido island — a city famous for its annual February Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) with deep-twilight blue lighting on illuminated snow sculptures along the Ōdōri Park boulevard. Sapporo color refers to a Yuki Matsuri night-sky over an illuminated snow sculpture: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the optical complexity of artificial illumination on snow-reflected sky.

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.

#b5a8ec
Original
#97b2ef
Protanopia
#98b0ea
Deuteranopia
#aab3c0
Tritanopia
#b0b0b0
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
2.15:1
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
9.78:1

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
##B5A8EC
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7011 0.6606 0.9063)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.097

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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