Varieties of the color blue may differ in hue, chroma (also called saturation, intensity, or colorfulness), or lightness (or value, tone, or brightness), or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a blue or other hue mixed with white, a shade being mixed with black. A large selection of these colors is shown below.
The color defined as blue in the RGB color model, X11 blue, is the brightest possible blue that can be reproduced on a computer screen, and is the color named blue in X11. It is one of the three primary colors used in the RGB color space, along with red and green. The three additive primaries in the RGB color system are the three colors of light chosen such as to provide the maximum gamut of colors that are capable of being represented on a computer or television set.
The color defined as blue in the CMYK color system used in printing, also known as pigment blue, is the tone of blue that is achieved by mixing process (printer's) cyan and process (printer's) magenta in equal proportions.
The purpose of the CMYK color system is to provide the maximum possible gamut of color reproducible in printing by the use of only three primaries.
The color indicated is only approximate as the colors of printing inks may vary.
The "Natural Color System" is widely used in Scandinavia.
NCS Blue can only be displayed approximately on a computer screen, as these spectral colors have been adjusted to fit into the sRGB gamut. In the 21st century, this hue is classified as an variation of azure that is on the border of cyan.
Blue (Munsell)
Blue (Munsell)
The hues of the Munsell color system, at varying values, and maximum chroma to stay in the sRGB gamut
The Munsell color system is a color space that specifies colors based on three color dimensions: hue, value (lightness), and chroma (color purity), spaced uniformly (according to the logarithmic scale which governs human perception) in three dimensions in the Munsell color solid, which is shaped like an elongated oval at an angle. In order for all the colors to be spaced uniformly, it was found necessary to use a color wheel with five primary colors: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
Munsell can only be displayed approximately on a computer screen, as these spectral colors have been adjusted to fit into the sRGB gamut. In the 21st century, its blue is classified as an intermediate between azure and cyan.
Blue (Crayola) is the color called blue in Crayola crayons.
"Blue" was one of the original Crayola crayons formulated in 1903.
Crayola can only be displayed approximately on a computer screen. In the 21st century, this hue is classified as a variation of azure that is on the border of blue.
In this section, the term 'tint' usually refers to a blueish color mixed with white or light gray. The term shade is used in its technical sense as used in color theory, meaning a blueish color mixed with black or dark gray.
The colors arranged in order of their value (brightness) (V in the HSV code), the brighter colors toward the top and the darker colors toward the bottom.
Periwinkle (also periwinkle blue or lavender blue) is a mixture of white, blue, and red. It is named after the Periwinkle flower and is also commonly referred to as a tone of light blue.
Bluebonnet is a bright shade of blue with a slight violet tinge. It represents the color of bluebonnet flowers, which are part of the lupin family. The bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas.
Navy blue is a shade of the standard (h = 240°) blue. Navy blue got its name from the dark blue (contrasted with white) worn by sailors in the Royal Navy since 1748 (originally called marine blue before 1840) and subsequently adopted by other navies around the world.
The first recorded use of navy blue as a color name in English was in 1840.[12]
Midnight blue is an X11 web color. This color was originally called midnight. The first recorded use of midnight as a color name in English was in 1915.[13]
Space cadet is one of the colors on the Resene Color List,[15] a color list popular in Australia and New Zealand. The color "space cadet" was formulated in 2007.
Twin Bed is so named since its HEX color code spells out "BED" twice. The color is also recognized for bearing close semblance to the light pastel shade of cyan common on bed sheets.
International Klein Blue (IKB) is a deep blue hue first mixed by the French artistYves Klein. IKB's visual impact comes from its heavy reliance on ultramarine, as well as Klein's often thick and textured application of paint to canvas. There is a legend that Klein patented the color, but in reality he simply submitted a Soleau envelope and never progressed to the patent stage.
Original Blurple is a brilliant purplish blue hue. It is the older version of Blurple, described below. It was used in the old Discord logo. Before 13 May 2021, it was simply called Blurple.[18]
Process blue is a Pantone-defined shade[21] used by the football team the Carolina Panthers and is sometimes consequently called "Carolina blue" or "Panther blue".[22]
The web colorlight blue is part of the X11 color system, with a hue code of 194. Variations of this color are known as sky blue, baby blue, or angel blue.
The first recorded use of "light blue" as a color term in English is in 1915.[25]
Uranian blue is a light greenish blue, the color of Uranus, which was named after Uranus, the primordial god of the sky and the heavens in Greek mythology.
Celtic blue is a shade of blue, also known as glas celtig in Welsh, or gorm ceilteach in both the Irish language and in Scottish Gaelic. Julius Caesar reported (in Commentarii de Bello Gallico) that the Britanni used to colour their bodies blue with vitrum, a word that means primarily "glass", but also the domestic name for the "woad" (Isatis tinctoria), besides the Gaulish loanword glastum (from Proto-Celtic *glastos "green"). The connection seems to be that both glass and the woad are "water-like" (lat. vitrum is from Proto-Indo-European *wed-ro- "water-like").
Spanish blue is the color that is called Azul (the Spanish word for "blue") in the Guía de coloraciones (Guide to colorations) by Rosa Gallego and Juan Carlos Sanz, a color dictionary published in 2005 that is widely popular in the Hispanophone realm.
On the RGB color wheel, "azure" (hexadecimal #0080FF) is defined as the color at 210 degrees, i.e., the hue halfway between blue and cyan. In the RGB color model, used to create all the colors on a television or computer screen, azure is created by adding a little green light to blue light. The complementary color of azure is orange.
In the X11 color system which became a standard for early web colors, azure is depicted as a pale cyan or whitish cyan rather than a shade of azure.
In an artistic context, this color could also be called azure mist or cyan mist.
Variations of azure
In this section, the term shade is used in its technical sense as used in color theory, meaning a blueish color mixed with black or dark gray. The colors arranged in order of their value (brightness) (V in the HSV code), the brighter colors toward the top and the darker colors toward the bottom.
The web colorlight blue is part of the X11 color system, with a hue code of 194. This color is closer to cyan than to blue. Variations of this color are known as sky blue, baby blue, or angel blue.
The first recorded use of "light blue" as a color term in English is in the year 1915.[34]
Columbia blue is a medium light tone of azure named after Columbia University. The typical Columbia blue is defined by Pantone Columbia Blue (PANTONE 290).[35]
The first recorded use of sky blue as a color name in English was in 1728 in the Cyclopædia of Ephraim Chambers.[39] Prior to the Chambers reference, the color had first been used in 1585 in a book by Nicolas de Nicolay where he stated "the tulbant[clarification needed] of the merchant must be skie coloured".[40][41]
The first use of Capri as a color name in English was in 1920.[43]
The color Capri in general is named for the azure-cyan color of the Mediterranean Sea around the island of Capri off Italy, the site of several villas belonging to the Roman EmperorTiberius, including his imperial residence in his later years, the Villa Jovis. Specifically, the color Capri is named after the color of the Blue Grotto on the island of Capri[44] as it appears on a bright sunny day. Today the island of Capri is a resort island popular with tourists.
The name deep sky blue for this color did not come into use until the promulgation of the X11 color list in 1987.
Blue Grotto waters showing their distinctive azure colour
The name Capri is still used for this color as well as the name deep sky blue.
The first recorded use of cerulean as a color name in English was in 1590.[45]
The word is probably derived from the Latin word caeruleus, "dark blue, blue, or blue-green", which in turn probably derives from caelulum, diminutive of caelum, "heaven, sky".[46]
The color name jordy blue dates back to at least 2001, and came into wider use when the Resene Paints colors were used as one of the sources for the Xona Games Color List.[citation needed]
The color name Picton blue dates back to at least 2001, and came into wider use when the Resene Paints colors were used as one of the sources for the Xona Games Color List.[47] Many of Resene's shades of blue and cyan are named after places in New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds, where the town of Picton is located.
The color United Nations blue resembles the shade of blue seen on the flag of the United Nations. Current branding guidelines (since 2020[48]) use Pantone 2925. Previously, the flag used Pantone 279.[49]
The color true blue is a deep tone of azure that is the color of the uniforms of the sports teams of UCLA. It is also one of the shades of blue used by the Los Angeles Chargers though they use the name powder blue.
Puerto Rican medium blue is a bright, cool, saturated shade of blue matching the shade of color of the triangle on Puerto Rico's current national flag.
Air force blue, also known as RAF blue, is used by the Royal Air Force, the first air force to choose an "air force blue" color by which to identify itself, in 1920.
The color "air force blue" is a medium tone of azure since it has a hue code of 204 which is a hue code between 195 and 225, signifying a tone of azure.
Steel blue is a grayish tone of azure that resembles the color blue steel, i.e., steel which has been subjected to bluing in order to protect it from rust.
The first recorded use of steel blue as a color name in English was in 1817.[61]
The hues of the Munsell color system, at varying values, and maximum chroma to stay in the sRGB gamut
The Munsell color system is a color space that specifies colors based on three color dimensions: hue, value (lightness), and chroma (color purity), spaced uniformly (according to the logarithmic scale which governs human perception) in three dimensions in the Munsell color solid, which is shaped like an elongated oval at an angle. In order for all the colors to be spaced uniformly, it was found necessary to use a color wheel with five primary colors: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
Munsell can only be displayed approximately on a computer screen, as these spectral colors have been adjusted to fit into the sRGB gamut. In the 21st century, its shade of blue is classified as an intermediate between azure and cyan.
Spanish blue is the color that is called Azul (the Spanish word for "blue") in the Guía de coloraciones (Guide to colorations) by Rosa Gallego and Juan Carlos Sanz, a color dictionary published in 2005 that is widely popular in the Hispanophone realm. It is a shade of azure. [citation needed]
Celtic blue is a shade of blue, also known as glas celtig in Welsh, or gorm ceilteach in both the Irish language and in Scottish Gaelic. Julius Caesar reported (in Commentarii de Bello Gallico) that the Britanni used to colour their bodies blue with vitrum, a word that means primarily "glass", but also the domestic name for the "woad" (Isatis tinctoria), besides the Gaulish loanword glastum (from Proto-Celtic *glastos "green"). The connection seems to be that both glass and the woad are "water-like" (lat. vitrum is from Proto-Indo-European *wed-ro- "water-like").
Penn Blue is one of the official colors of the University of Pennsylvania, along with Penn Red. While the school colors were defined by 1910,[73] university history points to earlier times when the colors may have been chosen, including a possible visit by George Washington to the University, where students used the color of his tunic to determine school colors or a track meet where Penn athletes declared that they would wear the colors "of the teams we beat," which would be those of both Harvard University and Yale University.[74] Originally defined as the colors used on the American flag, the colors have since deviated.[73]
Resolution blue is a vivid blue color. The color name dates back to at least 2001, and came into wider use when the Resene Paints colors were used as one of the sources for the Xona Games Color List.[75] Many of Resene's shades of blue and cyan are named after places in New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds, where Resolution Bay is located.
Azure is the color between cyan and blue on the spectrum of visible light. It is often described as the color of the sky on a clear day.
Fuchsia is a vivid pinkish-purplish-red color, named after the color of the flower of the fuchsia plant, which was named by a French botanist, Charles Plumier, after the 16th-century German botanist Leonhart Fuchs.
Lavender is a light shade of purple or violet. It applies particularly to the color of the flower of the same name. The web color called lavender is displayed adjacent—it matches the color of the palest part of the flower; however, the more saturated color shown as floral lavender more closely matches the average color of the lavender flower as shown in the picture and is the tone of lavender historically and traditionally considered lavender by average people as opposed to website designers. The color lavender might be described as a medium purple or a light pinkish-purple. The term lavender may be used in general to apply to a wide range of pale, light, or grayish-purples, but only on the blue side; lilac is pale purple on the pink side. In paints, the color lavender is made by mixing purple and white paint.
Lemon or lemon-color is a vivid yellow color characteristic of the lemon fruit. Shades of "lemon" may vary significantly from the fruit's actual color, including fluorescent tones and creamy hues reflective of lemon pies and confections.
Red-violet refers to a rich color of high medium saturation about 3/4 of the way between red and magenta, closer to magenta than to red. In American English, this color term is sometimes used in color theory as one of the purple colors—a non-spectral color between red and violet that is a deep version of a color on the line of purples on the CIE chromaticity diagram.
Baby blue is a tint of azure, one of the pastel colors.
Spring green is a color that was traditionally considered to be on the yellow side of green, but in modern computer systems based on the RGB color model is halfway between cyan and green on the color wheel.
In optics, orange has a wavelength between approximately 585 and 620 nm and a hue of 30° in HSV color space. In the RGB color space it is a secondary color numerically halfway between gamma-compressed red and yellow, as can be seen in the RGB color wheel. The complementary color of orange is azure. Orange pigments are largely in the ochre or cadmium families, and absorb mostly blue light.
Varieties of the color green may differ in hue, chroma or lightness, or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a green or other hue mixed with white, a shade being mixed with black. A large selection of these various colors is shown below.
Varieties of the color red may differ in hue, chroma or lightness, or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a red or other hue mixed with white, a shade being mixed with black. A large selection of these various colors are shown below.
Pink colors are usually light or desaturated shades of reds, roses, and magentas which are created on computer and television screens using the RGB color model and in printing with the CMYK color model. As such, it is an arbitrary classification of color.
The color magenta has notable tints and shades. These various colors are shown below.
Livid is a medium bluish-gray color. This color name comes from the Latin color term lividus meaning "'a dull leaden-blue color', and also used to describe the color of contused flesh, leading to the English expression 'black and blue'". The first recorded use of livid as a color name in English was in 1622.
Varieties of the color yellow may differ in hue, chroma or lightness, or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a yellow or other hue mixed with white, a shade being mixed with black. A large selection of these various colors is shown below.
Variations of gray or grey include achromatic grayscale shades, which lie exactly between white and black, and nearby colors with low colorfulness. A selection of a number of these various colors is shown below.
The color cyan, a greenish-blue, has notable tints and shades. It is one of the subtractive primary colors along with magenta, and yellow.
Violet is a color term derived from the flower of the same name. There are numerous variations of the color violet, a sampling of which are shown below.
There are numerous variations of the color purple, a sampling of which is shown below.
Sky blue refers to a collection of shades comparable to that of a clear daytime sky. Typically it is a shade of cyan or light teal, though some iterations are closer to light blue. The term is attested from 1681. A 1585 translation of Nicolas de Nicolay's 1576 Les navigations, peregrinations et voyages faicts en la Turquie includes "the tulbant [turban] of the merchant must be skie coloured".
Rose is the color halfway between red and magenta on the HSV color wheel, also known as the RGB color wheel.
↑ Type the word "Blue" into the indicated window on the Pantone Color Finder and the color will appear. There are seven versions, all with the same color codes—C, EC, HC, M, PC, U, and UP.
↑ Grossmann, Maria (1988). Colori e lessico: studi sulla struttura semantica degli aggettivi di colore in catalano, castigliano, italiano, romeno, latino ed ungherese (in Italian). Gunter Narr Verlag. ISBN3-87808-370-X.
↑ Color sample #196 on the ISCC-NBS color list is the color sample that matches the color in the book by Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill—Color Sample of Liberty: Page 109 Plate 43 Color Sample C12
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 197; Color Sample of Liberty: Page 109 Plate 43 Color Sample C12
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 103; Color Sample of Navy blue: Page 131 Plate 40 Color Sample E11
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York: 1930 McGraw-Hill Page 199; Color Sample of Midnight: Page 103 Plate 40 Color Sample A8
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 196; color sample of Independence: Page 117 Plate 47 Color Sample H12
1 2 3 Maerz & Paul (1930). A Dictionary of Color. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. p.63, plate35, sampleE2; p190.
↑ The color displayed in this color box matches the color called baby blue is displayed on page93, plate35, as color sampleE2 in Maerz & Paul (1930).[23]
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 190
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 202. See color sample of powder blue, Page 95—Plate 36 Color Sample H2
↑ Gallego, Rosa; Sanz, Juan Carlos (2005). Guía de coloraciones (Gallego, Rosa; Sanz, Juan Carlos (2005). Guide to Colorations) Madrid: H. Blume. ISBN84-89840-31-8
↑ Maerz, Aloys John and M. Rea Paul (1930) A Dictionary of Color, New York, McGraw-Hill, p. 205; color sample of Teal Blue: p. 101 Plate 39 Color Sample L6
↑ On colour plate 33 (page 89) of the 1930 book A Dictionary of Color by Maerz and Paul, the colours on the right side of colour plate 33 from top to bottom represent the most highly saturated colours on the color wheel from cyan to azure, and the colours on the bottom of colour plate 33 from right to left represent the most highly saturated colours on the colour wheel from azure to blue. The colour sample that represents azure is colour sample L12 on Plate 33 on Page 89. See reference to Azure on Page 190 in the index. See also discussion of the color azure, Page 149.
↑ The color displayed in this color box matches the color called baby blue in the 1930 book by Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill; the color baby blue is displayed on page 93, Plate 35, Color Sample E2.
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 190; Color Sample of Baby Blue: Page 93 Plate 35 Color Sample E2
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 204; Color Sample of Sky Blue: Page 89 Plate 33 Color Sample E6
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Color Sample of Capri: Page 93 Plate 35 Color Sample L7; The color Capri is shown as lying halfway between Cyan and Azure.
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 191
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 152 Discussion of the color Capri
↑ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 190; Color Sample of Cerulean: Page 89 Plate 33 Color Sample E6
↑ The sRGB values are taken by converting the NCS color 2060-B using the “NCS Navigator” tool at the NCS website.
↑ Gallego, Rosa; Sanz, Juan Carlos (2005). Guía de coloraciones (Gallego, Rosa; Sanz, Juan Carlos (2005). Guide to Colorations) Madrid: H. Blume. ISBN84-89840-31-8
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Color coordinates
