Tints & Shades
50
100
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500
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800
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Scale from white (50) through Oxford Blue (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #002147
- RGB
- rgb(0, 33, 71)
- HSL
- hsl(212, 100%, 14%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.25 0.081 254)
- CMYK
- cmyk(100%, 54%, 0%, 72%)
--color-oxford-bluebg-[#002147]Accessibility
Score: 96/100On White (#FFF)
16.05:1
On Black (#000)
1.31:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
14.72:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #002147
color: #002147
bg-[#002147] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #002147
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Kumquat
#E8820C
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 very dark, near-black depth creates dramatic intensity — maximally contrastive, powerful, and reserved for focal design elements where other dark colors would disappear.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Oxford 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
Oxford Blue is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (16.05:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #002147;Text
color: #002147;Border
border: 2px solid #002147;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #00214740;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #002147, #344873);Tailwind-style
--color-oxford-blue: #002147;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Oxford Blue without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#002147]Text
text-[#002147]Border
border-[#002147]Ring
ring-[#002147]Fill
fill-[#002147]From (gradient)
from-[#002147]Via (gradient)
via-[#002147]To (gradient)
to-[#002147]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Oxford Blue design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-oxford-blue: #002147;
--color-oxford-blue-rgb: 0, 33, 71;
--color-oxford-blue-hsl: 212, 100%, 14%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-oxford-blue: #002147; $color-oxford-blue-rgb: 0, 33, 71; $color-oxford-blue-hsl: 212, 100%, 14%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'oxford-blue': '#002147',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-oxford-blue: #002147;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"oxford-blue": {
"value": "#002147",
"type": "color",
"description": "Oxford Blue — #002147"
}
}More blue colors
View all →What Does Oxford 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. Oxford Blue (#002147) distills this heritage into professionalism: a quality the human brain processes as fundamentally safe, competent, and reliable.
- 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).
- Oxford Blue's dark lightness (14%) 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.
- At 100% saturation, Oxford 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.
In a world of visual noise, Oxford Blue earns attention through steadiness. Use it where you need to be believed.
How to Use Oxford Blue in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Oxford Blue's accessibility profile makes it one of the more designer-friendly choices in the warm-cool spectrum. Its dark quality at 14% lightness typically produces workable contrast ratios for both text and UI applications.
- UI components: primary brand color, link color, interactive states—Oxford Blue performs reliably in all these roles with its dark tonal character.
- Brand & identity: corporate identity, banking and finance UIs, healthcare platforms—contexts where Oxford Blue's vivid quality creates the right register.
- Typography: Oxford 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, Oxford 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: Oxford 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.
In a world of visual noise, Oxford Blue earns attention through steadiness. Use it where you need to be believed.
Oxford Blue Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Oxford Blue (#002147) achieves a 16.05:1 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: 1.5%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 16.05:1 — AAA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 1.31:1 — Fail
- Best text color on Oxford Blue background: White (#FFFFFF) at 16.05:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 1.5% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Oxford 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.
Oxford Blue's WCAG profile makes it a compliant choice for most text applications.
Oxford Blue in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Oxford Blue (#002147) is most at home in industries where trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism are key brand values. Its dark 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: CVS Health, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente) Teal-blue works particularly well for health tech and telemedicine, balancing clinical trust with digital accessibility.
- Brand positioning: Oxford 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, Oxford Blue works effectively in trust-critical applications, government services, B2B software—contexts where calm serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Oxford 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 Oxford Blue? ▾
- The hex code for Oxford Blue is #002147. Its RGB values are rgb(0, 33, 71) and its HSL values are hsl(212, 100%, 14%).
- What does Oxford 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 very dark, near-black depth creates dramatic intensity — maximally contrastive, powerful, and reserved for focal design elements where other dark colors would disappear.
- Is Oxford Blue WCAG accessible? ▾
- Oxford Blue (#002147) passes WCAG AAA on white with a 16.05:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 96/100.
- What colors go well with Oxford Blue? ▾
- Oxford Blue pairs well with its complementary color Kumquat (#E8820C). Analogous colors like Cadet Blue and Sky Blue also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Oxford Blue used for? ▾
- Oxford 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 Oxford Blue? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #002147` or `background-color: #002147`. The CSS custom property is `--color-oxford-blue: #002147`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#002147]` for backgrounds or `text-[#002147]` for text.