ColorXprez

#4E454A

Graphite · dark neutral

About #4E454A

#4E454A is a near-neutral, dark shade in the gray family. On screen it is built from 31% red, 27% green and 29% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 0% cyan, 12% magenta, 5% yellow and 69% black. Being nearly neutral, it pairs easily with warm and cool tones alike.

Of the common colour names it is similar to Graphite (ΔE 8.5); Charcoal comes next. Its complementary colour, directly opposite on the colour wheel, is #454E49 — a graphite tone that gives the strongest contrast in hue.

Designers tend to use dark tones like #4E454A for headings, body text, footers and dark-mode backgrounds. White text reads best on it at 9.23:1 (a WCAG AAA pass). Used as a text colour on white, it is readable too (9.23:1).

Colour codes

HEX
RGB
HSL
HSV / HSB
CMYK
CIELAB
Decimal
CSS
Red78
Green69
Blue74

Closest named colours

Graphite
#383838 · ΔE 8.5
Charcoal
#36454F · ΔE 10.5
Umber
#635147 · ΔE 11.8

ΔE measures visible difference: under 2 is barely noticeable, over 10 is clearly different.

Text on #4E454A

WCAG contrast for white and black text on this colour.

White heading text
Body copy set on graphite #4E454A.
9.23:1AAA
Black heading text
Body copy set on graphite #4E454A.
2.27:1Fail

Colour-blindness preview

How #4E454A appears to people with the three most common types of colour-vision deficiency.

Normal vision
#4E454A
Protanopia (no red cones)
#45474A
Deuteranopia (no green cones)
#47484A
Tritanopia (no blue cones)
#4F4547

Shades, tints & matching colours

Tints and shades

Complementary

Analogous

Triadic

Split complementary

Tetradic

Similar colours

Frequently asked questions

›What colour is #4E454A?

#4E454A is a near-neutral, dark shade in the gray family. On screen it is built from 31% red, 27% green and 29% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 0% cyan, 12% magenta, 5% yellow and 69% black. Being nearly neutral, it pairs easily with warm and cool tones alike.

›What text colour should I use on #4E454A?

Use white text. White on #4E454A has a contrast ratio of 9.23:1 (AAA).

›What colours go with #4E454A?

Its complementary colour is #454E49, and analogous partners are #4E454E and #4E4546.