ColorXprez

#5F596A

Charcoal · dark cool gray

About #5F596A

#5F596A is a muted, dark shade in the gray family. On screen it is built from 37% red, 35% green and 42% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 10% cyan, 16% magenta, 0% yellow and 58% black. Its overall feel is cool.

Of the common colour names it is similar to Charcoal (ΔE 14.1); Eggplant comes next. Its complementary colour, directly opposite on the colour wheel, is #646A59 — a umber tone that gives the strongest contrast in hue.

Designers tend to use dark tones like #5F596A for headings, body text, footers and dark-mode backgrounds. White text reads best on it at 6.72:1 (a WCAG AA pass). Used as a text colour on white, it is readable too (6.72:1).

Colour codes

HEX
RGB
HSL
HSV / HSB
CMYK
CIELAB
Decimal
CSS
Red95
Green89
Blue106

Closest named colours

Charcoal
#36454F · ΔE 14.1
Eggplant
#614051 · ΔE 14.2
Slate Gray
#708090 · ΔE 16.3

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

Text on #5F596A

WCAG contrast for white and black text on this colour.

White heading text
Body copy set on charcoal #5F596A.
6.72:1AA
Black heading text
Body copy set on charcoal #5F596A.
3.12:1AA Large

Colour-blindness preview

How #5F596A appears to people with the three most common types of colour-vision deficiency.

Normal vision
#5F596A
Protanopia (no red cones)
#565C6B
Deuteranopia (no green cones)
#575C69
Tritanopia (no blue cones)
#5D5B5F

Shades, tints & matching colours

Tints and shades

Complementary

Analogous

Triadic

Split complementary

Tetradic

Similar colours

Frequently asked questions

›What colour is #5F596A?

#5F596A is a muted, dark shade in the gray family. On screen it is built from 37% red, 35% green and 42% blue; for print, its CMYK mix is 10% cyan, 16% magenta, 0% yellow and 58% black. Its overall feel is cool.

›What text colour should I use on #5F596A?

Use white text. White on #5F596A has a contrast ratio of 6.72:1 (AA).

›What colours go with #5F596A?

Its complementary colour is #646A59, and analogous partners are #595B6A and #68596A.