Low Beam

What was measured

Closest neighbours

ΔE00 10

how alike two adjacent swatches look

Darkest to lightest

5.57:1

WCAG contrast across the set

Lightness covered

46 pts

of OKLCH lightness, 0–100

Under colour blindness

ΔE00 9.4

worst under protanopia

These two are one colour to a reader with protanopia. Fine while the set is read as an order; never use them to mean two different things without a label or an icon as well.

Five colours are not an interface, so this is an offer rather than a token set. It does not clear WCAG AA on secondary text and the accent — stated here rather than left for you to discover.

/* Low Beam — In-car and low-light instrument panels; warm and deliberately dim. */
:root {
  --palette-1: #181003;
  --palette-2: #392912;
  --palette-3: #5c462e;
  --palette-4: #796657;
  --palette-5: #978981;

  /* A suggested mapping, not a token set. It falls short of WCAG AA on secondary text and the accent — fix that before shipping. */
  --bg: #978981;
  --text: #181003;        /* 5.57:1 on --bg */
  --muted: #392912;      /* 4.14:1 on --bg */
  --accent: #5c462e;     /* 2.62:1 on --bg */
  --accent-text: #ffffff;
}

// tailwind.config — Low Beam
export default {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      colors: {
        lowbeam: {
        100: "#181003",
        200: "#392912",
        300: "#5c462e",
        400: "#796657",
        500: "#978981",
        },
      },
    },
  },
};

Use the Low Beam palette: #181003, #392912, #5C462E, #796657, #978981.

It is for this: In-car and low-light instrument panels; warm and deliberately dim.

Map it as ground #978981, body text #181003, secondary text #392912, and one accent #5C462E with #FFFFFF printed on it. That mapping does not clear WCAG AA on secondary text and the accent — body 5.57:1, secondary 4.14:1, accent 2.62:1. Fix the named role against the ground before shipping; do not ship the pair as given.

Do not use it for: Daylight-legible signage — nothing here survives glare.

Do not add a sixth colour, do not tint the greys toward a second hue, and do not carry meaning on hue alone — once colour vision is taken away the closest two of these sit only 9.4 apart on the CIEDE2000 scale, which is too close to tell apart, so pair every coloured state with a label or an icon.

How this palette was built · no hex was chosen by hand

The catalog states a recipe — ramp from hue 68 — and the five colours are derived from it in OKLCH, where a step of lightness is a step your eye agrees with rather than one the hex numbers agree with. That is why the numbers above are properties of this palette rather than claims about it.

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