Tints & Shades
50
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
Scale from white (50) through Sapphire (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #0F52BA
- RGB
- rgb(15, 82, 186)
- HSL
- hsl(216, 85%, 39%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.467 0.176 260)
- CMYK
- cmyk(92%, 56%, 0%, 27%)
--color-sapphirebg-[#0F52BA]Accessibility
Score: 71/100On White (#FFF)
7.15:1
On Black (#000)
2.94:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
6.56:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #0F52BA
color: #0F52BA
bg-[#0F52BA] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #0F52BA
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Champagne
#F7E7CE
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 Sapphire 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
Sapphire is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (7.15:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #0F52BA;Text
color: #0F52BA;Border
border: 2px solid #0F52BA;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #0F52BA40;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #0F52BA, #5b7eed);Tailwind-style
--color-sapphire: #0F52BA;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Sapphire without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#0F52BA]Text
text-[#0F52BA]Border
border-[#0F52BA]Ring
ring-[#0F52BA]Fill
fill-[#0F52BA]From (gradient)
from-[#0F52BA]Via (gradient)
via-[#0F52BA]To (gradient)
to-[#0F52BA]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Sapphire design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-sapphire: #0F52BA;
--color-sapphire-rgb: 15, 82, 186;
--color-sapphire-hsl: 216, 85%, 39%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-sapphire: #0F52BA; $color-sapphire-rgb: 15, 82, 186; $color-sapphire-hsl: 216, 85%, 39%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'sapphire': '#0F52BA',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-sapphire: #0F52BA;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"sapphire": {
"value": "#0F52BA",
"type": "color",
"description": "Sapphire — #0F52BA"
}
}Related Palettes & Combinations
Color Combinations
More blue colors
View all →What Does Sapphire Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
Evolutionary color psychology suggests blue's dominance traces to the sky and clean water—stable, expansive environments our ancestors associated with safety and resources. Sapphire carries this ancient signal into contemporary design as professionalism, doing perceptual work before a single word is read.
- Across color psychology research, blue consistently tests high for "trustworthiness" associations, making Sapphire a reliable vehicle for professionalism in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on blue-family tones to project stability and competence—values that Sapphire communicates in a deep key.
- At 85% saturation, Sapphire 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.
- Sapphire's deep lightness (39%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism at its most direct.
Sapphire doesn't need to announce itself—it simply makes everything around it feel more reliable.
How to Use Sapphire in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Sapphire is a workhorse color in design systems—reliable in both semantic (interactive, informational) and aesthetic (trusted, professional) roles. Its vivid saturation means it performs across both digital and print contexts without fatigue.
- 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: Sapphire's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: Sapphire's vivid saturation (85%) means small applications—accents, highlights, icons—deliver maximum impact without visual fatigue. Reserve large-scale use for intentional brand moments.
- As a dark tone, Sapphire creates maximum contrast with white and light neutrals—excellent for creating premium dark-mode sections, bold headers, and high-drama brand moments
- Typography: Sapphire works as a background behind white text but requires careful sizing—test at intended heading and body sizes before finalizing.
Sapphire doesn't need to announce itself—it simply makes everything around it feel more reliable.
Sapphire Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Sapphire (#0F52BA) achieves a 7.15:1 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: 9.7%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 7.15:1 — AAA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 2.94:1 — Fail
- Best text color on Sapphire background: White (#FFFFFF) at 7.15:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 9.7% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Sapphire 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 Sapphire 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.
Sapphire in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Sapphire'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 vivid 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: 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: 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: Sapphire 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, Sapphire works effectively in corporate identity, banking and finance UIs, healthcare platforms—contexts where stability serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
For marketers and brand strategists, Sapphire 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 Sapphire? ▾
- The hex code for Sapphire is #0F52BA. Its RGB values are rgb(15, 82, 186) and its HSL values are hsl(216, 85%, 39%).
- What does Sapphire 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 Sapphire WCAG accessible? ▾
- Sapphire (#0F52BA) passes WCAG AAA on white with a 7.15:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 71/100.
- What colors go well with Sapphire? ▾
- Sapphire pairs well with its complementary color Champagne (#F7E7CE). Analogous colors like Powder Blue and Sapphire Blue also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Sapphire used for? ▾
- Sapphire 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 Sapphire? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #0F52BA` or `background-color: #0F52BA`. The CSS custom property is `--color-sapphire: #0F52BA`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#0F52BA]` for backgrounds or `text-[#0F52BA]` for text.