Lead
#212121
A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is dark — it carries white text and needs care with black.
Hex
#212121
RGB
33, 33, 33
OKLCh
24.8% 0.000 0.0°
CIELAB (D50)
12.7, 0.0, 0.0
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 6 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
- It uses almost none of the chroma available here: this is a grey with a trace of hue rather than a colour.
- As text on white it measures APCA Lc 103.1; on black, Lc 0.0. The sign is the polarity, which the WCAG ratio discards.
- Built into an eleven-step scale, 10 of the 10 adjacent pairs stay ΔE00 2 apart — see the ramp.
- All three dichromacies see it as very nearly the same colour you do: its hue is not the part carrying its identity.
Text on this colour
White text
16.10:1 — passes AA
Black text
1.30:1 — fails AA
White text is the better of the two at16.10:1. That is enough for body text.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#212121
protanopia
#212121 · ΔE00 0.0
deuteranopia
#212121 · ΔE00 0.0
tritanopia
#212121 · ΔE00 0.0
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isYoung Night at ΔE00 0.629: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Young NightΔE00 0.629 · #232323
- Verified BlackΔE00 0.966 · #232324
- NeroΔE00 1.259 · #252525
- Eye PatchΔE00 1.462 · #232121
- Eerie BlackΔE00 1.885 · #1b1b1b
- Black Chestnut OakΔE00 1.997 · #252321
- Siyâh BlackΔE00 2.076 · #1c1b1a
- Noble BlackΔE00 2.102 · #202124
- Gluon GreyΔE00 2.159 · #1a1b1c
- Coco’s BlackΔE00 2.163 · #1c1c1a
- Dire WolfΔE00 2.206 · #282828
- Inkwell InceptionΔE00 2.303 · #1e1e21
6 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.