Tints & Shades
50
100
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500
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800
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Scale from white (50) through Slate Blue (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #6A5ACD
- RGB
- rgb(106, 90, 205)
- HSL
- hsl(248, 53%, 58%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(0.544 0.171 286)
- CMYK
- cmyk(48%, 56%, 0%, 20%)
--color-slate-bluebg-[#6A5ACD]Accessibility
Score: 54/100On White (#FFF)
5.31:1
On Black (#000)
3.96:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
4.87:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #6A5ACD
color: #6A5ACD
bg-[#6A5ACD] text-[#FFFFFF]
border-left: 4px solid #6A5ACD
Color Harmonies
Complementary
Army Green
#454B1B
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. At medium lightness, it is the most versatile tone of this hue family — readable as text on light backgrounds, yet vibrant enough as a visual accent.
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where Slate 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
Slate Blue is a dark color. Use white (#FFFFFF) text on top of it for maximum readability (5.31:1). Avoid small black text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #6A5ACD;Text
color: #6A5ACD;Border
border: 2px solid #6A5ACD;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #6A5ACD40;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #6A5ACD, #9d87ff);Tailwind-style
--color-slate-blue: #6A5ACD;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply Slate Blue without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#6A5ACD]Text
text-[#6A5ACD]Border
border-[#6A5ACD]Ring
ring-[#6A5ACD]Fill
fill-[#6A5ACD]From (gradient)
from-[#6A5ACD]Via (gradient)
via-[#6A5ACD]To (gradient)
to-[#6A5ACD]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use Slate Blue design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-slate-blue: #6A5ACD;
--color-slate-blue-rgb: 106, 90, 205;
--color-slate-blue-hsl: 248, 53%, 58%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-slate-blue: #6A5ACD; $color-slate-blue-rgb: 106, 90, 205; $color-slate-blue-hsl: 248, 53%, 58%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'slate-blue': '#6A5ACD',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-slate-blue: #6A5ACD;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"slate-blue": {
"value": "#6A5ACD",
"type": "color",
"description": "Slate Blue — #6A5ACD"
}
}More blue colors
View all →What Does Slate Blue Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
The reason Slate Blue projects reliability is partly evolutionary (blue skies and clean water = safety) and partly cultural (centuries of professional, governmental, and institutional use have trained associations). The result is a color that creates instant psychological permission to engage.
- 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).
- Slate Blue's mid-tone lightness (58%) shifts its psychological register: a balanced mid-tone that embodies trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism at its most direct.
- At 53% saturation, Slate Blue reads as subdued—neither overwhelming nor passive, landing in the trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism zone with measured confidence.
In a world of visual noise, Slate Blue earns attention through steadiness. Use it where you need to be believed.
How to Use Slate Blue in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
Slate Blue's accessibility profile makes it one of the more designer-friendly choices in the warm-cool spectrum. Its mid-tone quality at 58% lightness typically produces workable contrast ratios for both text and UI applications.
- UI components: primary brand color, link color, interactive states—Slate Blue performs reliably in all these roles with its mid-tone tonal character.
- Brand & identity: corporate identity, banking and finance UIs, healthcare platforms—contexts where Slate Blue's subdued quality creates the right register.
- Typography: Slate 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, Slate 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: Slate Blue's subdued quality means it scales well across proportions—from full-bleed backgrounds to single-pixel borders—making it an unusually versatile palette component.
In a world of visual noise, Slate Blue earns attention through steadiness. Use it where you need to be believed.
Slate Blue Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
Slate Blue (#6A5ACD) reaches 5.31:1 contrast with white text—meeting WCAG 2.1 AA minimum of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. It clears standard production accessibility requirements. Relative luminance: 14.8%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 5.31:1 — AA ✓
- As text on black (#000000): 3.96:1 — AA (large text only)
- Best text color on Slate Blue background: White (#FFFFFF) at 5.31:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 14.8% — low luminance (dark)—it provides strong contrast for white and light overlaid text, functioning well as a background in dark-mode and header contexts
- Slate Blue qualifies for normal body text and all larger sizes (AA).
- 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.
Slate Blue's WCAG profile makes it a compliant choice for most text applications.
Slate Blue in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Slate Blue (#6A5ACD) is most at home in industries where trust, reliability, calm, and professionalism are key brand values. Its mid-tone quality makes it particularly effective in Finance & Banking contexts, where the subdued 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: 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: Headspace, One Medical, Kaiser Permanente) Teal-blue works particularly well for health tech and telemedicine, balancing clinical trust with digital accessibility.
- Brand positioning: Slate 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, Slate Blue works effectively in trust-critical applications, government services, B2B software—contexts where trust serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
The industries where Slate Blue 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 Slate Blue? ▾
- The hex code for Slate Blue is #6A5ACD. Its RGB values are rgb(106, 90, 205) and its HSL values are hsl(248, 53%, 58%).
- What does Slate 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. At medium lightness, it is the most versatile tone of this hue family — readable as text on light backgrounds, yet vibrant enough as a visual accent.
- Is Slate Blue WCAG accessible? ▾
- Slate Blue (#6A5ACD) passes WCAG AA on white with a 5.31:1 contrast ratio. Its overall accessibility score is 54/100.
- What colors go well with Slate Blue? ▾
- Slate Blue pairs well with its complementary color Army Green (#454B1B). Analogous colors like Cornflower Blue and Phthalo Blue also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is Slate Blue used for? ▾
- Slate 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 Slate Blue? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #6A5ACD` or `background-color: #6A5ACD`. The CSS custom property is `--color-slate-blue: #6A5ACD`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#6A5ACD]` for backgrounds or `text-[#6A5ACD]` for text.