Iron
#5e5e5e
A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is mid — the hardest range to put text on, either colour struggles.
Hex
#5e5e5e
RGB
94, 94, 94
OKLCh
48.2% 0.000 89.9°
CIELAB (D50)
39.9, 0.0, 0.0
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 12 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it — this part of the space is crowded, and the names here are finer distinctions than most people make.
- 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 82.2; on black, Lc -19.7. 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
6.48:1 — passes AA
Black text
3.24:1 — large text only
White text is the better of the two at6.48:1. That is enough for body text.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#5e5e5e
protanopia
#5e5e5e · ΔE00 0.0
deuteranopia
#5e5e5e · ΔE00 0.0
tritanopia
#5e5e5e · ΔE00 0.0
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isAsphalt Grey at ΔE00 0.612: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Asphalt GreyΔE00 0.612 · #5e5e5d
- Knight’s ArmourΔE00 0.765 · #5c5d5d
- Shades OnΔE00 0.766 · #605f5f
- Rhine CastleΔE00 0.937 · #5f5e5f
- KettlemanΔE00 0.969 · #606061
- Graphic CharcoalΔE00 1.281 · #5c5e5f
- Charcoal SmudgeΔE00 1.384 · #60605e
- Soot VeilΔE00 1.435 · #5d5e5c
- Zen RetreatΔE00 1.545 · #5b5d5c
- Iron FixtureΔE00 1.546 · #5d5b5b
- Forged SteelΔE00 1.656 · #5b5b59
- Zinc DustΔE00 1.666 · #5b5c5a
11 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.