ColorXprez

#4E505A

Charcoal · dark neutral

About #4E505A

#4E505A is a near-neutral, dark shade in the gray family. On screen it is built from 31% red, 31% green and 35% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 13% cyan, 11% magenta, 0% yellow and 65% black. Being nearly neutral, it pairs easily with warm and cool tones alike.

Of the common colour names it is very close to Charcoal (ΔE 7.7); Graphite comes next. Its complementary colour, directly opposite on the colour wheel, is #5A584E — a umber tone that gives the strongest contrast in hue.

Designers tend to use dark tones like #4E505A for headings, body text, footers and dark-mode backgrounds. White text reads best on it at 8.02:1 (a WCAG AAA pass). Used as a text colour on white, it is readable too (8.02:1).

Colour codes

HEX
RGB
HSL
HSV / HSB
CMYK
CIELAB
Decimal
CSS
Red78
Green80
Blue90

Closest named colours

Charcoal
#36454F · ΔE 7.7
Graphite
#383838 · ΔE 12.4
Gunmetal
#2A3439 · ΔE 14.0

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

Text on #4E505A

WCAG contrast for white and black text on this colour.

White heading text
Body copy set on charcoal #4E505A.
8.02:1AAA
Black heading text
Body copy set on charcoal #4E505A.
2.62:1Fail

Colour-blindness preview

How #4E505A appears to people with the three most common types of colour-vision deficiency.

Normal vision
#4E505A
Protanopia (no red cones)
#4D515A
Deuteranopia (no green cones)
#4D505A
Tritanopia (no blue cones)
#4B5253

Shades, tints & matching colours

Tints and shades

Complementary

Analogous

Triadic

Split complementary

Tetradic

Similar colours

Frequently asked questions

›What colour is #4E505A?

#4E505A is a near-neutral, dark shade in the gray family. On screen it is built from 31% red, 31% green and 35% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 13% cyan, 11% magenta, 0% yellow and 65% black. Being nearly neutral, it pairs easily with warm and cool tones alike.

›What text colour should I use on #4E505A?

Use white text. White on #4E505A has a contrast ratio of 8.02:1 (AAA).

›What colours go with #4E505A?

Its complementary colour is #5A584E, and analogous partners are #4E565A and #524E5A.