Tints & Shades
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Scale from white (50) through Periwinkle (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #CCCCFF
- RGB
- rgb(204, 204, 255)
- HSL
- hsl(240, 100%, 90%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.862 0.07 285)
- CMYK
- cmyk(20%, 20%, 0%, 0%)
--color-periwinklebg-[#CCCCFF]Accessibility
Score: 48/100On White (#FFF)
1.54:1
On Black (#000)
13.65:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
1.41:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #CCCCFF
color: #CCCCFF
bg-[#CCCCFF] text-[#000000]
border-left: 4px solid #CCCCFF
Color Harmonies
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. As a very light tint, it carries the lightness and openness of its hue family while remaining gentle enough for backgrounds, subtle highlights, and delicate UI elements.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Periwinkle 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
Fails AA
4.5:1 minimum required
Large Text
Fails AA Large
3:1 minimum required
UI Components
Check contrast
3:1 for non-text UI
Periwinkle is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (13.65:1). Avoid white text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #CCCCFF;Text
color: #CCCCFF;Border
border: 2px solid #CCCCFF;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #CCCCFF40;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #CCCCFF, #ffffff);Tailwind-style
--color-periwinkle: #CCCCFF;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Periwinkle without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#CCCCFF]Text
text-[#CCCCFF]Border
border-[#CCCCFF]Ring
ring-[#CCCCFF]Fill
fill-[#CCCCFF]From (gradient)
from-[#CCCCFF]Via (gradient)
via-[#CCCCFF]To (gradient)
to-[#CCCCFF]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Periwinkle design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-periwinkle: #CCCCFF;
--color-periwinkle-rgb: 204, 204, 255;
--color-periwinkle-hsl: 240, 100%, 90%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-periwinkle: #CCCCFF; $color-periwinkle-rgb: 204, 204, 255; $color-periwinkle-hsl: 240, 100%, 90%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'periwinkle': '#CCCCFF',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-periwinkle: #CCCCFF;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"periwinkle": {
"value": "#CCCCFF",
"type": "color",
"description": "Periwinkle — #CCCCFF"
}
}Related Palettes & Combinations
Color Combinations
More blue colors
View all →What Does Periwinkle Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Periwinkle at #CCCCFF is a pale 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.
- Across color psychology research, blue consistently tests high for "trustworthiness" associations, making Periwinkle a reliable vehicle for stability in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on blue-family tones to project stability and competence—values that Periwinkle communicates in a pale key.
- At 100% saturation, Periwinkle 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.
- Periwinkle's pale lightness (90%) shifts its psychological register: Sky and powder blues feel open, airy, and emotionally approachable—softening corporate authority into friendliness; popular in consumer tech and digital wellness.
The power of Periwinkle is quiet consistency. It builds trust cumulatively, appearing wherever credibility matters.
How to Use Periwinkle in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
The design challenge with Periwinkle is differentiation: every major institution uses blue. The answer lies in tone, proportion, and pairing—how a specific blue is used matters more than whether it's used.
- 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: Periwinkle's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Periwinkle's vivid saturation (100%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.
- Periwinkle creates strong legibility with black text overlays (13.7:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
- Typography: Periwinkle as text requires a dark background; its 90% lightness means it provides 1.5:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
The power of Periwinkle is quiet consistency. It builds trust cumulatively, appearing wherever credibility matters.
Periwinkle Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Periwinkle (#CCCCFF) achieves a 13.65:1 contrast ratio with black 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: 63.2%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 1.54:1 — Fail
- As text on black (#000000): 13.65:1 — AAA ✓
- Best text color on Periwinkle background: Black (#000000) at 13.65:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 63.2% — above-median luminance—it reads as a light to mid-tone background, compatible with dark text while retaining color personality
- Periwinkle 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.
For production use, test Periwinkle against your specific background colors rather than assuming #FFFFFF or #000000 performance translates. Surrounding colors alter perceived contrast.
Periwinkle in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Periwinkle (#CCCCFF) is most at home in industries where trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism are key brand values. Its pale quality makes it particularly effective in Finance & Banking contexts, where the vivid saturation signals trust 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: Periwinkle 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, Periwinkle works effectively in corporate identity, banking and finance UIs, healthcare platforms—contexts where trust serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Periwinkle performs best are those where the audience expects trust. Build brand strategy around this alignment, not against it.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for Periwinkle? ▾
- The hex code for Periwinkle is #CCCCFF. Its RGB values are rgb(204, 204, 255) and its HSL values are hsl(240, 100%, 90%).
- What does Periwinkle 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. As a very light tint, it carries the lightness and openness of its hue family while remaining gentle enough for backgrounds, subtle highlights, and delicate UI elements.
- Is Periwinkle WCAG accessible? ▾
- Periwinkle (#CCCCFF) does not pass WCAG AA on white (1.54:1 ratio). Use it on dark backgrounds where it achieves 13.65:1. Its overall accessibility score is 48/100.
- What colors go well with Periwinkle? ▾
- Periwinkle pairs well with its complementary color Yellow (#FFFF00). Analogous colors like Bleu de France and Royal Blue also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Periwinkle used for? ▾
- Periwinkle 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 Periwinkle? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #CCCCFF` or `background-color: #CCCCFF`. The CSS custom property is `--color-periwinkle: #CCCCFF`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#CCCCFF]` for backgrounds or `text-[#CCCCFF]` for text.