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Cerulean Tone Soft
Color detail

Cerulean Tone Soft

Blue · Hue 190
Hex
#76B0BC
RGB
rgb(118, 176, 188)
HSL
hsl(190, 34%, 60%)
CMYK
cmyk(37%, 6%, 0%, 26%)
Metrics
S 34% · L 60%
Contrast (WCAG)
on white
2.4:1Fail
on black
8.7:1AA
Save to journalSign in to saveStart palette from thisRecent trail

About this color

Cerulean Tone Soft (#76B0BC) belongs to the blue family — hue 190°, 34% saturation, 60% lightness. Copy the hex, RGB, or HSL value above, or paste the CSS custom property below into your stylesheet to reference this color directly.

CSS
:root {
  --colorarchive-cerulean-tone-soft: #76B0BC;
  --colorarchive-cerulean-tone-soft-hsl: hsl(190, 34%, 60%);
  --colorarchive-cerulean-tone-soft-rgb: rgb(118, 176, 188);
}

AI Color Names

Let AI suggest alternative poetic names for this color in English and Chinese.

Design Context

ProfessionalReliableFocused
Common in

Banking · Insurance · Enterprise Software

Pairs well with

White for clean authority, light orange for warm contrast, dark navy for depth

Design tip

The backbone of business interfaces. Use for primary actions and navigation. Blue links are the web's universal convention.

Cultural context ▶

Blue is the world's most popular color. It represents trust, competence, and stability across virtually all cultures.

Color Origins

Blue family

The most-loved color on the planet, and the most overused.

Heritage

Blue is the rarest pigment in the natural world — and so, historically, the most expensive. Ultramarine, ground from lapis lazuli mined only in Afghanistan, was worth more than gold in Renaissance Europe; Vermeer's bills were enormous because of how much he used. Egyptian blue (the first synthetic pigment, ~3000 BCE) was lost for centuries and rediscovered in the 19th. Prussian blue (1704) democratized blue overnight; Yves Klein's IKB (1960) re-aristocratized it.

Across cultures

In ancient Egypt blue was the color of the Nile and the heavens — sacred, protective. In China blue-and-white porcelain (qinghua) defined export ceramics for 600 years. In Mediterranean traditions blue wards off the evil eye. In post-WWII America, blue became the corporate default ('IBM blue'); in Japan, indigo (ai) is the centuries-old workwear dye that became the ground tone of an entire textile tradition. Across the world blue is consistently rated the most-liked color — sometimes by 35% margins.

In the wild

Facebook is blue because Mark Zuckerberg is red-green colorblind. IBM's blue dates to 1947. Levi's blue is the natural color of indigo on cotton. Twitter Blue (#1DA1F2) defined social-media blue for a decade before X scrapped it. Pixar's Up famously runs on a single complementary palette built on blue. The blue checkmark, the blue link, the blue 'send' button — blue has become the default color of digital trust, to the point of being a UX cliché.

How it reads

Blue recedes — physically, the eye focuses blue light slightly behind the retina, which makes blue elements feel deep or distant. It reads as trustworthy, calm, corporate, and (at the cool end) cold. Light blues read airy and clinical; mid blues are the default for tech and finance; deep blues read as luxurious or naval. The omnipresence of blue in software is real: most enterprise UIs reach for it because it offends the fewest stakeholders, which is also the reason it can feel like the absence of a real choice.

This particular tone

A confident mid-tone — this is the workhorse register of the hue, and the band where most successful brand colors live.

Lightness band: At mid-lightness the hue carries its full character. This is the band where most identity colors live: bright enough to be distinctive at small sizes, deep enough to sit cleanly on a white canvas.

Saturation band: The clear, mid-saturation register is the most common identity sweet spot — saturated enough to register as a 'real' color, restrained enough not to fight typography or photography placed over it.

Brands using a similar color

Within the public brand-guidelines reference catalog, these are the closest matches to #76B0BC.

  • Redditsecondary
    Periwinkle · #7193FF
    →
  • Supabaseprimary
    Supabase Green · #3ECF8E
    →
  • Slackaccent
    Slack Blue · #36C5F0
    →

Cultures using a similar color

From the cultural-palette catalog, these regions feature a color close to #76B0BC.

  • MoroccoChefchaouen Blue
    #7BAFD4 · Painted medina walls (Rif mountains)
    →
  • IcelandGlacial Cyan
    #75BBC1 · Vatnajökull ice cave light
    →
  • Korea (Obangsaek)Celadon-Goryeo Green
    #7CA38E · Goryeo Dynasty ceramics, 12th-13th c.
    →

Tonal strip

All lightness levels at this hue and saturation. Click any to navigate.

Palette moves

Instead of stopping at one swatch, use nearby, opposite, and tonal neighbors to branch into a broader palette.

Lighter companion
Cerulean Silk Soft
#92C0C9 · hsl(190, 34%, 68%)
Darker companion
Cerulean Radiant Soft
#62A4B2 · hsl(190, 34%, 54%)
Complementary counterpoint
Ruby Tone Soft
#BC8276 · hsl(10, 34%, 60%)
Analogous lead
Sapphire Tone Soft
#7699BC · hsl(210, 34%, 60%)
Analogous echo
Lagoon Tone Soft
#76BCB0 · hsl(170, 34%, 60%)
Triadic +120°
Peony Tone Soft
#BC76B0 · hsl(310, 34%, 60%)
Triadic +240°
Honey Tone Soft
#B0BC76 · hsl(70, 34%, 60%)
Split-comp +150°
Garnet Tone Soft
#BC768D · hsl(340, 34%, 60%)
Split-comp +210°
Apricot Tone Soft
#BCA576 · hsl(40, 34%, 60%)
Export preview
Base: Cerulean Tone Soft #76B0BC
Lighter companion: Cerulean Silk Soft #92C0C9
Darker companion: Cerulean Radiant Soft #62A4B2
Complementary counterpoint: Ruby Tone Soft #BC8276
Analogous lead: Sapphire Tone Soft #7699BC
Analogous echo: Lagoon Tone Soft #76BCB0
Triadic +120°: Peony Tone Soft #BC76B0
Triadic +240°: Honey Tone Soft #B0BC76
Split-comp +150°: Garnet Tone Soft #BC768D
Split-comp +210°: Apricot Tone Soft #BCA576

Compare

See how Cerulean Tone Soft compares side by side with related colors.

vsCerulean Silk SoftvsCerulean Radiant SoftvsRuby Tone SoftvsSapphire Tone SoftvsLagoon Tone SoftvsPeony Tone Soft

Nearest neighbors

The closest archive matches by hue, saturation, and lightness.

Search by hex
Nearby match
Cerulean Tone Dust
#7EABB4 · hsl(190, 26%, 60%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Radiant Soft
#62A4B2 · hsl(190, 34%, 54%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Silk Soft
#92C0C9 · hsl(190, 34%, 68%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Tone Muted
#87A5AB · hsl(190, 18%, 60%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Radiant Dust
#6B9EA8 · hsl(190, 26%, 54%)
Nearby match
Cerulean Core Soft
#5196A4 · hsl(190, 34%, 48%)

Accessible pairings

Archive colors that meet WCAG contrast standards when paired with this color. Use as text-on-background or background-on-text.

Contrast checker
AAA7:1
Crimson Ink Clear
#371010
AAA7:1
Crimson Ink Vivid
#3E0909
AAA7:1
Merlot Ink Clear
#371017
AAA7:1
Merlot Ink Vivid
#3E0912
AAA7.1:1
Mulberry Ink Clear
#2A1037
AAA7.1:1
Mulberry Ink Vivid
#2D093E

Color Vision Simulation

How this color appears with different color vision deficiencies.

Full simulator
Deuteranopia
#8F8BB9
Protanopia
#9393B9
Tritanopia
#7AB7B6
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Appears in collections
Cobalt Morning