Tints & Shades
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Scale from white (50) through Dark Cornflower Blue (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #26428B
- RGB
- rgb(38, 66, 139)
- HSL
- hsl(223, 57%, 35%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.401 0.126 265)
- CMYK
- cmyk(73%, 53%, 0%, 45%)
--color-dark-cornflower-bluebg-[#26428B]Accessibility
Score: 96/100On White (#FFF)
9.4:1
On Black (#000)
2.23:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
8.62:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #26428B
color: #26428B
bg-[#26428B] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #26428B
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Forsythia
#EDAA00
Split-Complementary
Similar Colors
Color Meaning & Psychology
Blue is the world's most universally preferred color across cultures. It slows respiration, lowers blood pressure, and promotes calm — the physiological opposite of red. Blue's associations with sky and water make it feel limitless, trustworthy, and reliable. In corporate design, blue dominates banking, insurance, healthcare, and technology precisely because it communicates stability. Dark navy conveys authority and tradition; royal blues suggest quality and aspiration; sky blues feel open and optimistic; teal bridges trust with modernity. The primary limitation of blue is food — it suppresses appetite, with almost no naturally blue foods existing in nature. Its deeper, richer tone gives it gravitas and sophistication, making it well-suited for primary brand colors, typography, and contexts where authority matters.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Dark Cornflower 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
Dark Cornflower Blue is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (9.40:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #26428B;Text
color: #26428B;Border
border: 2px solid #26428B;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #26428B40;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #26428B, #5b6dbc);Tailwind-style
--color-dark-cornflower-blue: #26428B;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Dark Cornflower Blue without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#26428B]Text
text-[#26428B]Border
border-[#26428B]Ring
ring-[#26428B]Fill
fill-[#26428B]From (gradient)
from-[#26428B]Via (gradient)
via-[#26428B]To (gradient)
to-[#26428B]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Dark Cornflower Blue design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-dark-cornflower-blue: #26428B;
--color-dark-cornflower-blue-rgb: 38, 66, 139;
--color-dark-cornflower-blue-hsl: 223, 57%, 35%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-dark-cornflower-blue: #26428B; $color-dark-cornflower-blue-rgb: 38, 66, 139; $color-dark-cornflower-blue-hsl: 223, 57%, 35%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'dark-cornflower-blue': '#26428B',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-dark-cornflower-blue: #26428B;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"dark-cornflower-blue": {
"value": "#26428B",
"type": "color",
"description": "Dark Cornflower Blue — #26428B"
}
}More blue colors
View all →What Does Dark Cornflower Blue Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Dark Cornflower Blue at #26428B is a deep expression of the trust spectrum. Blue tones are processed by the brain's credibility centers before conscious evaluation—which is why virtually every major financial institution, technology company, and government body defaults to the blue family to establish authority.
- Blue is the most universally trusted color in Western design—associated with authority (government, police, corporate), intelligence (universities, technology), and emotional calm (water, sky). It's the dominant color in corporate branding precisely because it creates immediate credibility.
- In Chinese tradition, blue represents immortality and the heavens, associated with the element of wood and spring vitality. In many Islamic cultures, blue offers protection from evil (the "evil eye" tradition), and in Indian traditions it's associated with divinity (Krishna).
- Dark Cornflower Blue's deep lightness (35%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism at its most direct.
- At 57% saturation, Dark Cornflower Blue reads as moderately saturated—neither overwhelming nor passive, landing in the trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism zone with measured confidence.
Dark Cornflower Blue doesn't need to announce itself—it simply makes everything around it feel more reliable.
How to Use Dark Cornflower Blue in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Dark Cornflower Blue is a workhorse color in design systems—reliable in both semantic (interactive, informational) and aesthetic (trusted, professional) roles. Its moderately saturated saturation means it performs across both digital and print contexts without fatigue.
- UI components: primary brand color, link color, interactive states—Dark Cornflower Blue performs reliably in all these roles with its deep tonal character.
- Brand & identity: corporate identity, banking and finance UIs, healthcare platforms—contexts where Dark Cornflower Blue's moderately saturated quality creates the right register.
- Typography: Dark Cornflower Blue works as a background behind white text but requires careful sizing—test at intended heading and body sizes before finalizing.
- As a dark tone, Dark Cornflower Blue creates maximum contrast with white and light neutrals—excellent for creating premium dark-mode sections, bold headers, and high-drama brand moments
- Proportional use: Dark Cornflower Blue's moderately saturated quality means it scales well across proportions—from full-bleed backgrounds to single-pixel borders—making it an unusually versatile palette component.
Dark Cornflower Blue doesn't need to announce itself—it simply makes everything around it feel more reliable.
Dark Cornflower Blue Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Dark Cornflower Blue (#26428B) achieves a 9.40:1 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: 6.2%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 9.40:1 — AAA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 2.23:1 — Fail
- Best text color on Dark Cornflower Blue background: White (#FFFFFF) at 9.40:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 6.2% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Dark Cornflower 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.
Always verify Dark Cornflower Blue at its final intended size and weight using a real contrast checker—font weight and rendering environment affect perceived legibility beyond what raw ratios capture.
Dark Cornflower Blue in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Dark Cornflower Blue's brand positioning falls squarely in the territory of trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism. Industry data supports its strongest performance in finance, technology, healthcare categories, where the moderately saturated saturation calibrates the message at a deep, considered level.
- 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: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, 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: Notion, Slack, 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: CVS Health, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente) Teal-blue works particularly well for health tech and telemedicine, balancing clinical trust with digital accessibility.
- Brand positioning: Dark Cornflower Blue is best suited for brands projecting stability, competence, 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, Dark Cornflower Blue works effectively in trust-critical applications, government services, B2B software—contexts where trust serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
For marketers and brand strategists, Dark Cornflower Blue is a commitment to trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism. Match it with industries that make that promise and it will pay dividends consistently.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Dark Cornflower Blue? ▾
- The hex code for Dark Cornflower Blue is #26428B. Its RGB values are rgb(38, 66, 139) and its HSL values are hsl(223, 57%, 35%).
- What does Dark Cornflower Blue mean in design? ▾
- Blue is the world's most universally preferred color across cultures. It slows respiration, lowers blood pressure, and promotes calm — the physiological opposite of red. Blue's associations with sky and water make it feel limitless, trustworthy, and reliable. In corporate design, blue dominates banking, insurance, healthcare, and technology precisely because it communicates stability. Dark navy conveys authority and tradition; royal blues suggest quality and aspiration; sky blues feel open and optimistic; teal bridges trust with modernity. The primary limitation of blue is food — it suppresses appetite, with almost no naturally blue foods existing in nature. Its deeper, richer tone gives it gravitas and sophistication, making it well-suited for primary brand colors, typography, and contexts where authority matters.
- Is Dark Cornflower Blue WCAG accessible? ▾
- Dark Cornflower Blue (#26428B) passes WCAG AAA on white with a 9.4:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 96/100.
- What colors go well with Dark Cornflower Blue? ▾
- Dark Cornflower Blue pairs well with its complementary color Forsythia (#EDAA00). Analogous colors like Non-Photo Blue and Alice Blue also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Dark Cornflower Blue used for? ▾
- Dark Cornflower 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 Dark Cornflower Blue? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #26428B` or `background-color: #26428B`. The CSS custom property is `--color-dark-cornflower-blue: #26428B`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#26428B]` for backgrounds or `text-[#26428B]` for text.