ColorXprez

#4E5D5C

Charcoal · dark neutral

About #4E5D5C

#4E5D5C is a near-neutral, dark shade in the gray family. On screen it is built from 31% red, 36% green and 36% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 16% cyan, 0% magenta, 1% yellow and 64% black. Being nearly neutral, it pairs easily with warm and cool tones alike.

Of the common colour names it is similar to Charcoal (ΔE 12.2); Umber comes next. Its complementary colour, directly opposite on the colour wheel, is #5D4E4F — a umber tone that gives the strongest contrast in hue.

Designers tend to use dark tones like #4E5D5C for headings, body text, footers and dark-mode backgrounds. White text reads best on it at 6.90:1 (a WCAG AA pass). Used as a text colour on white, it is readable too (6.90:1).

Colour codes

HEX
RGB
HSL
HSV / HSB
CMYK
CIELAB
Decimal
CSS
Red78
Green93
Blue92

Closest named colours

Charcoal
#36454F · ΔE 12.2
Umber
#635147 · ΔE 15.6
Graphite
#383838 · ΔE 15.9

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

Text on #4E5D5C

WCAG contrast for white and black text on this colour.

White heading text
Body copy set on charcoal #4E5D5C.
6.90:1AA
Black heading text
Body copy set on charcoal #4E5D5C.
3.04:1AA Large

Colour-blindness preview

How #4E5D5C appears to people with the three most common types of colour-vision deficiency.

Normal vision
#4E5D5C
Protanopia (no red cones)
#5B5B5C
Deuteranopia (no green cones)
#58595C
Tritanopia (no blue cones)
#4A5E5D

Shades, tints & matching colours

Tints and shades

Complementary

Analogous

Triadic

Split complementary

Tetradic

Similar colours

Frequently asked questions

›What colour is #4E5D5C?

#4E5D5C is a near-neutral, dark shade in the gray family. On screen it is built from 31% red, 36% green and 36% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 16% cyan, 0% magenta, 1% yellow and 64% black. Being nearly neutral, it pairs easily with warm and cool tones alike.

›What text colour should I use on #4E5D5C?

Use white text. White on #4E5D5C has a contrast ratio of 6.90:1 (AA).

›What colours go with #4E5D5C?

Its complementary colour is #5D4E4F, and analogous partners are #4E5D55 and #4E575D.