Boulder#7A7A7A, a medium gray
Boulder in RGB, HSL, OKLCH & more
Ready to ship: every line pastes straight into your codebase, and the whole file copies at once.
ART is Rhapsody's perceptual model. How ART works
What kind of neutral is Boulder?
Every color has a place in the standard vocabulary. This is Boulder's, measured rather than asserted.
Boulder is achromatic. That means no hue at all. Its red, green, and blue channels are equal, so there's no direction for a hue to point in. Only lightness. Munsell writes that as value 5.0 with chroma 0 (chroma is how vivid a color is). ISCC-NBS, the naming standard built on top of Munsell, files it under medium gray.
Because there's no hue to reproduce, a neutral is the one kind of color that survives almost any conversion unchanged. No gamut (the range of colors a screen or a press can actually show) can clip a hue that isn't there.
Munsell coordinates and block from the ISCC-NBS system, computed by Rhapsody's own renotation inversion.
Shades of Boulder, lighter and darker
For hover states, washed backgrounds, and dark surfaces that still read as #7A7A7A. 13 steps, spaced evenly by eye, with the color itself sitting at its natural depth, boulder-600.
Tints (light surfaces; dark text passes on every one)
Midtones (the color at full strength, for brand & accent work)
Shades (dark surfaces; light text passes on every one)
Most tools mix. Rhapsody measures.
Paste any color. The whole system comes back, contrast-checked before you see it.
The window on the right was generated from #7A7A7A, like this whole page.
Is Boulder accessible? Contrast with other neutrals
Strong contrast makes your work readable by everyone, and meets the WCAG standard accessibility law points at. AA is the floor; AAA is the tier worth aiming for in body text. Black text on #7A7A7A passes AA. For AAA, use its scale. Every strip below is one surface, and the marks are the steps that reach AAA on it.
Rows are text, columns are background · 64 of 210 pairings reach WCAG 2.2 AAA, shown here.
Ship the audit, not screenshots.
Run #7A7A7A against the colors you actually ship, every pairing and any target, and export it: exact ratios, the AA tier, APCA, in one file.
The audit on the right was calibrated from #7A7A7A, like this whole page.
Boulder in CMYK: one value for files, one per press
Every held press standard prints this color exactly as it is.
In CMYK, #7A7A7A is . That is the value design tools and file formats use when no press is involved.
On press (what each standard prints)
Press values computed through the ICC characterization data each standard proofs against. Each CMYK held to prints the color exactly.
No surprises at the printer.
Run any color through the major press standards: FOGRA51, GRACoL, Japan Color, FOGRA39. It's coming soon. Create a free account and you'll get a note the moment it's live.
The strip shows this page's tints and shades on screen, then through a standard GRACoL 2013 conversion.
Colors similar to Boulder
Here are other colors similar to Boulder along with accessible text pairings and whether or not they're print-safe. Explore Grayscale
| Concord | Concord | #7C7B7A | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Tapa | Tapa | #7B7874 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Medium Grey | Medium Grey | #7D7F7C | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Friar Gray | Friar Gray | #807E79 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Gray | Gray | #808080 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Gunsmoke | Gunsmoke | #828685 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Natural Gray | Natural Gray | #8B8680 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Grey | Grey | #929591 | black text · AA | ✓ prints exactly |
| Star Dust | Star Dust | #9F9F9C | black text · AAA | ✓ prints exactly |
Colors that go with Boulder
Anything. A pure neutral has no complement and nothing sits across the wheel from it, so every color is safe next to #7A7A7A. If you want ready-made signals, its system ships four:
Use them as they are for status and interface work, or bring any brand color you already have; the gray will hold it.
Take Boulder with you
The work on this page doesn't stay here. Save a card and the color arrives in your file, your deck or your board already decided.
Your system is already built.
Rhapsody built it before you even asked: the scale, the neutrals, the utilities, every pairing calibrated.
This page's whole theme is built from one color. Palette does the same for yours: every step calibrated, every pairing checked, press included.
Every color on this page was calibrated, not mixed.
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