Tints & Shades
50
100
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800
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Scale from white (50) through White (500) to black (900), interpolated in Lab color space.
Color Values
- HEX
- #FFFFFF
- RGB
- rgb(255, 255, 255)
- HSL
- hsl(0, 0%, 100%)
- OKLCH
- oklch(1 0 0)
- CMYK
- cmyk(0%, 0%, 0%, 0%)
--color-whitebg-[#FFFFFF]Accessibility
Score: 48/100On White (#FFF)
1:1
On Black (#000)
21:1
On Light Gray (#F5F5F5)
1.09:1
Best text color on this background:
Design Applications
background-color: #FFFFFF
color: #FFFFFF
bg-[#FFFFFF] text-[#000000]
border-left: 4px solid #FFFFFF
Color Harmonies
Similar Colors
Color Meaning & Psychology
Pure white is the default background of the web, of printed paper, and of most product photography. It is the canvas on which everything else is rendered. In branding, white is used to signal clinical precision (healthcare, technology) and minimalist confidence (luxury).
Industry Usage
Common contexts and industries where White is applied in professional design.
- Healthcare and clinical environments
- Medical device and pharmaceutical packaging
- Minimalist consumer electronics packaging
- Premium homeware and kitchen brands
- Wedding and bridal industry
- Architecture and interior design for clean aesthetics
- Laboratory and scientific equipment
- Zero-waste and sustainability brands (clean connotations)
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
White is a light color. Use black (#000000) text on top of it for maximum readability (21.00:1). Avoid white text on this background.
CSS & Code Examples
Background
background-color: #FFFFFF;Text
color: #FFFFFF;Border
border: 2px solid #FFFFFF;Box Shadow
box-shadow: 0 4px 20px #FFFFFF40;Gradient
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #FFFFFF, #ffffff);Tailwind-style
--color-white: #FFFFFF;Tailwind CSS Utilities
Use arbitrary value syntax in Tailwind CSS to apply White without a custom config.
Background
bg-[#FFFFFF]Text
text-[#FFFFFF]Border
border-[#FFFFFF]Ring
ring-[#FFFFFF]Fill
fill-[#FFFFFF]From (gradient)
from-[#FFFFFF]Via (gradient)
via-[#FFFFFF]To (gradient)
to-[#FFFFFF]Design Tokens
Ready-to-use White design token in CSS custom properties, SCSS, Tailwind v3/v4, and JSON formats.
CSS Custom Properties
:root {
--color-white: #FFFFFF;
--color-white-rgb: 255, 255, 255;
--color-white-hsl: 0, 0%, 100%;
}SCSS Variables
$color-white: #FFFFFF; $color-white-rgb: 255, 255, 255; $color-white-hsl: 0, 0%, 100%;
Tailwind v3 Config
// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
'white': '#FFFFFF',
},
},
},
};Tailwind v4 (@theme)
/* tailwind.css */
@theme {
--color-white: #FFFFFF;
}JSON Design Token (W3C format)
{
"white": {
"value": "#FFFFFF",
"type": "color",
"description": "White — #FFFFFF"
}
}Related Palettes & Combinations
Color Combinations
Accessible Color Pairs
More white colors
View all →What Does White Mean? Color Psychology & Cultural Symbolism
In color psychology, white is unique in functioning primarily as a relational color—its meaning changes based on what's placed against it, around it, or within it. At #FFFFFF, White itself projects clarity, but its greater value is in what it makes possible for everything else in the composition.
- Across color psychology research, white consistently tests high for "clarity" associations, making White a reliable vehicle for clarity in cross-demographic audiences.
- Brand designers draw on white-family tones to project purity and precision—values that White communicates in a pale key.
- At 0% saturation, White reads as neutral—Off-whites and creams introduce warmth that humanizes white's potential sterility—extremely useful in lifestyle, luxury, and artisanal contexts.
- White's pale lightness (100%) shifts its psychological register: All whites are light by definition, but warm whites (cream, ivory, off-white) feel more human and organic than pure white—they're softer, less clinical, and more inviting in analog and print contexts.
White's power is the power of potential. Use it where you want the content to be everything.
How to Use White in Design: Applications, Pairings & Best Practices
The most elegant design systems often have white or near-white as their primary tone—surfaces that subordinate themselves to the content they carry.
- Avoid: environments where cultural context (East Asian mourning) may cause misunderstanding, highly tactile or sensory product categories where warmth is needed, and any context where sterility reads as cold.
- Color harmonies: White's complementary color creates a high-energy split ideal for promotional design; its analogous palette (±30° hue) builds cohesive, monochromatic sophistication.
- Proportional use: White's neutral quality means it scales well across proportions—from full-bleed backgrounds to single-pixel borders—making it an unusually versatile palette component.
- White creates strong legibility with black text overlays (21.0:1 contrast ratio), making it a reliable background or surface color in design systems
- Typography: White as text requires a dark background; its 100% lightness means it provides 1.0:1 contrast on white, not meeting WCAG AA.
White's power is the power of potential. Use it where you want the content to be everything.
White Accessibility: WCAG Contrast Ratios, Color Blindness & Inclusive Design
White (#FFFFFF) achieves a 21.00:1 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: 100.0%.
- As text on white (#FFFFFF): 1.00:1 — Fail
- As text on black (#000000): 21.00:1 — AAA ✓
- Best text color on White background: Black (#000000) at 21.00:1
- WCAG 2.1 luminance: 100.0% — high-luminance (near-white)—it provides excellent readability for dark text overlays and integrates naturally into light design systems
- White qualifies for all text sizes including small body copy (AAA).
White's WCAG profile makes it a compliant choice for most text applications.
White in Industry: Branding, Design & Market Applications
Across industry research, white-family tones consistently outperform competitors in categories built on purity, clarity, simplicity, and openness. White is a pale expression of this advantage—best positioned in Healthcare & Medical and adjacent markets.
- Healthcare & Medical: White's universal association with cleanliness, sterility, and medical precision makes it the foundational color of healthcare environments and products. It signals that contamination is absent and that procedures are conducted with precision and care. (examples: CVS Health, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente) Warm off-whites are used in patient-facing healthcare design to reduce anxiety; pure white for clinical, back-of-house, and medical device contexts.
- Technology & Minimalist Design: Apple's adoption of white as its product philosophy's visual language has made white synonymous with technological simplicity and premium minimalism. White signals that a product has been edited to essentials—nothing unnecessary remains. (examples: Notion, Slack, Salesforce) White backgrounds in UI design create the most readable interfaces by maximizing contrast for dark text and giving colorful UI elements maximum visual clarity.
- Luxury Packaging: White luxury packaging signals restraint, confidence, and the elimination of unnecessary decoration. It says: the product itself is so good that it doesn't need dressing up. This approach is used across fragrance, skincare, and premium food packaging. White + gold foil is a particularly powerful luxury packaging combination, creating maximum sophistication with minimum color.
- Brand positioning: White is best suited for brands projecting purity, precision, cleanliness. Categories outside this positioning—environments where cultural context (East Asian mourning) may cause misunderstanding—tend to see weaker results.
- Adjacent applications: Beyond primary industries, White works effectively in luxury retail, clean UI backgrounds, digital white space—contexts where simplicity serves a secondary but reinforcing role.
White earns its strongest ROI in industries where trust and recognition compound over time: Healthcare & Medical, Technology & Minimalist Design, Luxury Packaging. Use it to build the kind of brand recognition that decades reinforce.
Accessibility & Design Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the hex code for White? ▾
- The hex code for White is #FFFFFF. Its RGB values are rgb(255, 255, 255) and its HSL values are hsl(0, 0%, 100%).
- What does White mean in design? ▾
- Pure white is the default background of the web, of printed paper, and of most product photography. It is the canvas on which everything else is rendered. In branding, white is used to signal clinical precision (healthcare, technology) and minimalist confidence (luxury).
- Is White WCAG accessible? ▾
- White (#FFFFFF) does not pass WCAG AA on white (1:1 ratio). Use it on dark backgrounds where it achieves 21:1. Its overall accessibility score is 48/100.
- What colors go well with White? ▾
- White pairs well with its complementary color Iron Gray (#595E5E). Analogous colors like Hot Pink and Burgundy also work harmoniously. Check the Color Harmonies section above for the full palette.
- What is White used for? ▾
- White is commonly used for: Healthcare and clinical environments; Medical device and pharmaceutical packaging; Minimalist consumer electronics packaging; Premium homeware and kitchen brands; Wedding and bridal industry.
- What are the CSS and Tailwind values for White? ▾
- In CSS, use `color: #FFFFFF` or `background-color: #FFFFFF`. The CSS custom property is `--color-white: #FFFFFF`. In Tailwind CSS, use the arbitrary value class `bg-[#FFFFFF]` for backgrounds or `text-[#FFFFFF]` for text.