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Domestic Chalk

#f4f3f9
Notes

Domestic Chalk (#F4F3F9) 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 (250°, 33%, 96%) 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
#f4f3f9
RGB
rgb(244, 243, 249)
HSL
hsl(250, 33%, 96%)
HWB
hwb(250 95% 2%)
OKLCH
oklch(96.7% 0.008 293.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.9562 0.9531 0.9745)
HSV
hsv(250, 2%, 98%)
LAB
lab(96.07% 1.40 -2.76)
LCH
lch(96.07% 3.10 296.88)
CMYK
cmyk(2%, 2%, 0%, 2%)

Etymology

Domestic
adjective

Latin domesticus, of-the-house — derived from domus (house). As a color modifier, domestic implies a neutral-and-household-and-everyday quality, the neutral color of Vermeer-and-Dutch-Genre-painting household-and-everyday interior-and-textile-and-table-still-life finish, often featuring whitewashed walls and earthen-tiled floors. Sits at the neutral-and-traditional end of the grid, parallel to homey and cottage in usage.

Chalk
noun

A soft sedimentary form of calcium carbonate — composed primarily of compressed coccolithophore shells, forming the White Cliffs of Dover and the writing-surface of every blackboard. The color refers to freshly broken chalk on a slate surface: a clean, slightly cool bright white with the matte finish of micron-scale calcite. Cooler than ivory.

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

This color has effectively no chroma (OKLCH C = 0.008) — it’s on the grayscale axis. Hue rotations don’t change a grayscale color, so complementary, analogous, triadic, and split-complementary all reduce to the same value. They aren’t shown because four identical tiles would be misleading.

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.

#f4f3f9
Original
#f2f4f9
Protanopia
#f2f4f9
Deuteranopia
#f3f4f5
Tritanopia
#f4f4f4
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
1.10:1
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
19.03:1

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
##F4F3F9
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.9562 0.9531 0.9745)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.008

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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