Dark Ages
#9698a3
A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is light — black text sits on it comfortably, white text does not.
Hex
#9698a3
RGB
150, 152, 163
OKLCh
68.2% 0.016 277.7°
CIELAB (D50)
62.9, 0.9, -6.0
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 7 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
- It uses only 10% of the chroma available at this lightness and hue — there is a far more vivid version of this colour inside sRGB.
- As text on white it measures APCA Lc 54.9; on black, Lc -46.9. 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
2.87:1 — fails AA
Black text
7.32:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at7.32:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#747681 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#9698a3
protanopia
#9898a3 · ΔE00 1.1
deuteranopia
#9797a3 · ΔE00 1.2
tritanopia
#9797a8 · ΔE00 3.0
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isAngry Gargoyle at ΔE00 0.951: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Angry GargoyleΔE00 0.951 · #9799a6
- Time WarpΔE00 1.14 · #9397a3
- Perfect StormΔE00 1.184 · #9598a1
- Dame DignityΔE00 1.319 · #999ba8
- Dusky MoodΔE00 1.47 · #979ba8
- AcanthusΔE00 1.572 · #9899a7
- Too Big to WhaleΔE00 1.608 · #9596a4
- Classic CloudΔE00 2.103 · #9197a3
- Colorado PeakΔE00 2.106 · #9c9ba7
- MemoriseΔE00 2.118 · #9197a4
- Wet AsphaltΔE00 2.158 · #989cab
- Bright ManateeΔE00 2.192 · #979aaa
10 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.