Marginalia
ReadingAnnotated manuscripts and study guides where the ink should feel like it was just written.
Click a swatch to copy its hex.
Do not use this for
Long sessions — this chroma tires the eye past an hour of continuous reading.
What was measured
- Closest neighbours
- ΔE00 13.2
- how alike two adjacent swatches look
- Darkest to lightest
- 10.89:1
- WCAG contrast across the set
- Lightness covered
- 62 pts
- of OKLCH lightness, 0–100
- Under colour blindness
- ΔE00 12.4
- 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.
A suggested mapping · derived, then measured
Five colours are not an interface, so this is an offer rather than a token set. It clears WCAG AA as it stands.
/* Marginalia — Annotated manuscripts and study guides where the ink should feel like it was just written. */
:root {Tailwind
// tailwind.config — Marginalia
export default {
theme: {For your coding agent · printed from the colours
Use the Marginalia palette: #1A2942, #325379, #5182AB, #8AB3CD, #C7E3F1. It is for this: Annotated manuscripts and study guides where the ink should feel like it was just written.
How this palette was built · no hex was chosen by hand
The catalog states a recipe — ramp from hue 245 — 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.