Tints & Shades
50
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
Scale from white (50) through Cobalt Blue (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #0047AB
- RGB
- rgb(0, 71, 171)
- HSL
- hsl(215, 100%, 34%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.428 0.172 260)
- CMYK
- cmyk(100%, 58%, 0%, 33%)
--color-cobalt-bluebg-[#0047AB]Accessibility
Score: 96/100On White (#FFF)
8.44:1
On Black (#000)
2.49:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
7.74:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #0047AB
color: #0047AB
bg-[#0047AB] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #0047AB
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Light Orange
#FFB347
Split-Complementary
Similar Colors
Color Meaning & Psychology
Cobalt blue has the intensity of pure blue pigment at maximum saturation. Used in pottery, fine art, and the interiors of historic mosques, cobalt carries cultural weight beyond most blues. In modern brand design, cobalt blue is used when a company wants blue's trust at maximum energy.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Cobalt Blue is applied in professional design.
- Banking, insurance, and financial institutions
- Healthcare and medical device companies
- Enterprise software and SaaS platforms
- Government and public sector organizations
- Airlines and aviation brands
- Communication and social networking apps
- Cybersecurity and data protection products
- Pharmaceutical companies and clinical products
Accessibility Considerations
Normal Text
Passes AA
4.5:1 minimum required
Large Text
Passes AA Large
3:1 minimum required
UI Components
Meets 1.4.11
3:1 for non-text UI
Cobalt Blue is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (8.44:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #0047AB;Text
color: #0047AB;Border
border: 2px solid #0047AB;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #0047AB40;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #0047AB, #5472dd);Tailwind-style
--color-cobalt-blue: #0047AB;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Cobalt Blue without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#0047AB]Text
text-[#0047AB]Border
border-[#0047AB]Ring
ring-[#0047AB]Fill
fill-[#0047AB]From (gradient)
from-[#0047AB]Via (gradient)
via-[#0047AB]To (gradient)
to-[#0047AB]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Cobalt Blue design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-cobalt-blue: #0047AB;
--color-cobalt-blue-rgb: 0, 71, 171;
--color-cobalt-blue-hsl: 215, 100%, 34%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-cobalt-blue: #0047AB; $color-cobalt-blue-rgb: 0, 71, 171; $color-cobalt-blue-hsl: 215, 100%, 34%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'cobalt-blue': '#0047AB',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-cobalt-blue: #0047AB;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"cobalt-blue": {
"value": "#0047AB",
"type": "color",
"description": "Cobalt Blue — #0047AB"
}
}Related Palettes & Combinations
Color Combinations
Accessible Color Pairs
More blue colors
View all →What Does Cobalt Blue Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Blue is the world's most preferred color across gender, age, and culture—a distinction that reflects its deep psychological function. Cobalt Blue (#0047AB) distills this heritage into professionalism: a quality the human brain processes as fundamentally safe, competent, and reliable.
- Across color psychology research, blue consistently tests high for "trustworthiness" associations, making Cobalt Blue a reliable vehicle for professionalism in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on blue-family tones to project stability and competence—values that Cobalt Blue communicates in a deep key.
- At 100% saturation, Cobalt Blue reads as vivid—Electric and royal blues are modern, confident, and digitally native—they signal tech-forward positioning and work well for startups challenging traditional industries.
- Cobalt Blue's deep lightness (34%) shifts its psychological register: Navy and deep blues project gravitas, authority, and executive-level trust—the dominant choice for financial services, law firms, and premium B2B brands.
In a world of visual noise, Cobalt Blue earns attention through steadiness. Use it where you need to be believed.
How to Use Cobalt Blue in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Cobalt Blue's accessibility profile makes it one of the more designer-friendly choices in the warm-cool spectrum. Its deep quality at 34% lightness typically produces workable contrast ratios for both text and UI applications.
- Avoid: food contexts where it suppresses appetite (the only major color with no natural blue foods), extreme urgency signals, and applications targeting very young children where warmer colors perform better.
- Color harmonies: Cobalt Blue's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Cobalt Blue's vivid saturation (100%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.
- As a dark tone, Cobalt Blue creates maximum contrast with white and light neutrals—excellent for creating premium dark-mode sections, bold headers, and high-drama brand moments
- Typography: Cobalt Blue works as a background behind white text but requires careful sizing—test at intended heading and body sizes before finalizing.
In a world of visual noise, Cobalt Blue earns attention through steadiness. Use it where you need to be believed.
Cobalt Blue Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Cobalt Blue (#0047AB) achieves a 8.44:1 contrast ratio with white text, surpassing the WCAG 2.1 AAA threshold of 7:1. This exceptional contrast qualifies it for body text, UI components at any size, and all accessibility-sensitive interface contexts. Relative luminance: 7.4%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 8.44:1 — AAA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 2.49:1 — Fail
- Best text color on Cobalt Blue background: White (#FFFFFF) at 8.44:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 7.4% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Cobalt Blue qualifies for all text sizes including small body copy (AAA).
- Color blindness consideration: tritanopia (blue-yellow color blindness, ~0.003% of population) may affect how this color reads. While rare, for maximum accessibility supplement color signals with text or icon indicators in critical states.
Cobalt Blue's WCAG profile makes it a compliant choice for most text applications.
Cobalt Blue in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Cobalt Blue (#0047AB) is most at home in industries where trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism are key brand values. Its deep quality makes it particularly effective in Finance & Banking contexts, where the vivid saturation signals calm at exactly the right register.
- Finance & Banking: Blue is the most trusted color in financial services—a global design convention built over decades. It signals fiduciary reliability, stability, and the conservative stewardship that depositors and investors need to feel comfortable transferring wealth. (examples: Capital One, PayPal, Visa) Dark navy communicates established tradition; mid-tone blues suggest accessible, modern banking. Avoid pure bright blue for legacy institutions.
- Technology: Technology brands use blue to communicate intelligence, reliability, and forward-thinking professionalism. From legacy enterprise software to consumer apps, blue provides a neutral credibility that scales across markets and cultures. (examples: Apple, Microsoft, Salesforce) Varying the tone of blue is how tech brands differentiate: sky blue for friendliness (consumer apps), royal blue for confidence (productivity tools), navy for enterprise seriousness.
- Healthcare: Healthcare's use of blue is a trust transfer from corporate credibility to clinical reliability. Patients associate blue with cleanliness, precision, and medical competence—making it the second most common healthcare color after white. (examples: Headspace, One Medical, Kaiser Permanente) Teal-blue works particularly well for health tech and telemedicine, balancing clinical trust with digital accessibility.
- Brand positioning: Cobalt Blue is best suited for brands projecting trustworthiness, reliability, professionalism. Categories outside this positioning—food contexts where it suppresses appetite (the only major color with no natural blue foods)—tend to see weaker results.
- Adjacent applications: Beyond primary industries, Cobalt Blue works effectively in corporate identity, banking and finance UIs, healthcare platforms—contexts where calm serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Cobalt Blue performs best are those where the audience expects calm. Build brand strategy around this alignment, not against it.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Cobalt Blue? ▾
- The hex code for Cobalt Blue is #0047AB. Its RGB values are rgb(0, 71, 171) and its HSL values are hsl(215, 100%, 34%).
- What does Cobalt Blue mean in design? ▾
- Cobalt blue has the intensity of pure blue pigment at maximum saturation. Used in pottery, fine art, and the interiors of historic mosques, cobalt carries cultural weight beyond most blues. In modern brand design, cobalt blue is used when a company wants blue's trust at maximum energy.
- Is Cobalt Blue WCAG accessible? ▾
- Cobalt Blue (#0047AB) passes WCAG AAA on white with a 8.44:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 96/100.
- What colors go well with Cobalt Blue? ▾
- Cobalt Blue pairs well with its complementary color Light Orange (#FFB347). Analogous colors like Bright Cyan and Columbia Blue also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Cobalt Blue used for? ▾
- Cobalt Blue is commonly used for: Banking, insurance, and financial institutions; Healthcare and medical device companies; Enterprise software and SaaS platforms; Government and public sector organizations; Airlines and aviation brands.
- What are the CSS and Tailwind values for Cobalt Blue? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #0047AB` or `background-color: #0047AB`. The CSS custom property is `--color-cobalt-blue: #0047AB`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#0047AB]` for backgrounds or `text-[#0047AB]` for text.