Steel Gray Color Codes

Steel Gray is a dark neutral grey with the hex code #43464B, RGB values of 67, 70, 75 and an HSL value of hsl(218, 6%, 28%).

HEX	#43464B
RGB	67, 70, 75
HSL	hsl(218, 6%, 28%)
HSV	218°, 11%, 29%
CMYK	11%, 7%, 0%, 71%
LAB	29.62, -0.06, -3.42
CIELCHuv	29.62, 4.46, 246.23°

Nearest Pantone: PMS 432 C ΔE 5.0 · approximate
Nearest CSS name: darkslategray ΔE 11.8

Community source color-name-list, community color-name index

Steel Gray Color Hex Code

The Steel Gray color hex code is #43464B. Those six digits are three pairs, 43 for red, 46 for green and 4B for blue, which is the same triplet a browser reads from the CSS value below.

#43464B

Steel Gray Color RGB Code

The Steel Gray RGB code is rgb(67, 70, 75). Blue carries the most light at 75 of 255, which is what puts this color where it sits on the wheel.

rgb(67, 70, 75)

Steel Gray Color HSV Code

The Steel Gray HSV code is 218°, 11%, 29%. Read it as a hue of 218 degrees, 11% saturation and 29% value, which is the form most color pickers use because moving one number changes one thing.

218°, 11%, 29%

Steel Gray Color CIELChuv Code

The Steel Gray CIELCHuv code is 29.62, 4.46, 246.23°. Unlike hex or RGB this one is perceptual: lightness 30 means dark to the eye rather than to the screen, and chroma 4 is how far it sits from grey.

29.62, 4.46, 246.23°

Tonal scale

What are Steel Gray Color Palettes?

A shade mixes toward black, a tint toward white, a tone toward grey. Every step keeps the hue and is copy-ready.

Shades, toward black

Tints, toward white

Tones, toward grey

Open in the shades & tints generator →

Palettes

What are Steel Gray Color Palette Codes?

Each of these is a hue rotation from #43464B. They are generated, not curated, so they are exact.

Complementary

The opposite hue is #4B4843, a dark neutral grey. Complements carry the strongest contrast of any two-color scheme, so this pair suits a call to action better than a background. Neither is especially saturated, so this pairing stays calm enough for large areas of both.

Analogous

Its two neighbours are #434A4B and #44434B. Because they overlap heavily in hue, nothing in the group competes, and the eye reads the whole set as a single color with variation.

Triadic

#4B4346 and #464B43 complete an even 120 degree split. Three fully independent hues, so one has to lead: keep this base dominant and let the other two appear in small quantities.

Split-complementary

Instead of the direct complement, this takes the two hues either side of it: #4B4443 and #4A4B43. Almost the same contrast, without the edge shimmer a true complementary pair produces at high saturation.

Tetradic

Two complementary pairs forming a rectangle: this base with #4B4843, and #4B434A with #434B44. The richest of the five and the hardest to balance, so treat this base as the lead and hold the other three well back.

See these on the color wheel →

Accessibility

Measured against white and against black, with a separate verdict for each element type. Small text, large text and UI components have different thresholds, so one pass or fail for the whole color would be wrong roughly a third of the time.

White background

9.48:1

9.48

contrast ratio on white background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Passes	Passes
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Passes	Passes
UI component needs 3:1	Passes	n/a

Black background

2.22:1

2.22

contrast ratio on black background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Fails	Fails
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Fails	Fails
UI component needs 3:1	Fails	n/a

Steel Gray clears WCAG AA against white at 9.48:1, so it is safe for body copy as well as headings. Text placed on it should be white, which gives 9.48:1. With very little saturation it behaves as a neutral, which makes it a good background or a supporting tone alongside a stronger accent.

Check Steel Gray against another color →

Color vision

How Steel Gray looks with color blindness

Around 300 million people see color differently from the way it is specified. Each card shows the actual color beside how it appears, and how common that form of vision is.

Protanopia

About 1% of men

actual

#44444A

Steel Gray holds up almost unchanged here. ΔE 1.6

No working red cones. Reds darken sharply and drift toward the same muddy olive as green.

Deuteranopia

About 1% of men

actual

#44444A

Steel Gray holds up almost unchanged here. ΔE 1.6

No working green cones. With the milder deuteranomaly at nearer 6% of men, this is by far the most common form, and the one worth designing around.

Tritanopia

About 1 in 10,000

actual

#434949

Steel Gray shifts slightly here. ΔE 3.6

No working blue cones. Blues shift toward green and yellows toward pink. Rare, and unlike the others it is not sex-linked, so it affects men and women equally.

Achromatopsia

About 1 in 30,000

actual

#464646

Steel Gray shifts slightly here. ΔE 3.4

No color vision at all. Also a fair proxy for how the color survives a greyscale print or a failing screen.

Steel Gray is stable under the common forms of color blindness: to a deuteranope it reads as #44444A, a shift of only ΔE 1.6, which is close to imperceptible. The widest shift is under tritanopia, at ΔE 3.6. The rule this leads to needs no simulator: never let color be the only thing carrying a message. Add a label, an icon, or a clear difference in lightness, and the problem disappears for everyone.

Simulate a whole palette →

Snippets

Using Steel Gray in code

:root {
  --steel-gray: #43464B;
}

.example {
  color: var(--steel-gray);
}

// tailwind.config.js
theme: {
  extend: {
    colors: {
      'steel-gray': '#43464B',
    },
  },
}

// SwiftUI takes 0–1 components, not 0–255.
let steelGray = Color(
    red: 0.263,
    green: 0.275,
    blue: 0.294
)

<!-- res/values/colors.xml -->
<color name="steel_gray">#43464B</color>

// Flutter wants ARGB: FF for full opacity, then the hex.
const steelGray = Color(0xFF43464B);

Meaning

What is the Meaning of Steel Gray Color?

Steel Gray reads as quiet. It is muted enough to work as a background rather than a signal, and at 6% saturation with a perceptual lightness of 30 it behaves as a neutral color, which is the practical reason it turns up where it does.

What are Other Names of Steel Gray Color?

The closest CSS keyword is DarkSlateGray (#2F4F4F), though it is not a match: Delta-E 11.8 means the difference is visible side by side. For print the nearest Pantone is PMS 432 C at #444F51. The name Steel Gray comes from the community color-name index rather than a standards body, so you will meet it under other names elsewhere.

How is Steel Gray Color Made?

On a screen Steel Gray is made by additive light: 67 red, 70 green and 75 blue out of 255, with blue leading and 67 as the floor. In print it is subtractive instead, mixed as 11%, 7%, 0%, 71%. Starting from the pure hue at 218 degrees, Steel Gray is a shade, so it is that hue with black added.