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Named colour

Vantablack #000000

The blackest black, and the color war it started.

Token name suggestion: Midnight Obsidian

RGB
0, 0, 0
HSL
0°, 0%, 0%
CMYK
0, 0, 0, 100
Luminance
0.0000

#000000 is a deep muted near-black, 0° on the wheel and 50/100 on the cool side. Put white text on it (21.00:1). As text it scores 21.00:1 on white — safe at any size. Nearest name is Black, nearest Tailwind family is zinc.

hsl(0 0% 0%)rgb(0 0 0)Base step 950AAA inkNeutral

At a glance

Every number on this page in one read: what #000000 is made of, how bright it looks, and which way it leans.

Hex
#000000
Hue
near-black
Saturation
0%
muted
Lightness
0%
deep
Brightness
0%
HSV value
Perceived
0%
weighted brightness
Luminance
0.0000
WCAG relative
Temperature
Neutral
50/100 cool
Color family
Near-black
Tone
Muted
Best ink
White
21.00:1
Closest name
Black
ΔE2000 0
Chroma
0.0
LCH, 0–130ish
OKLCH L
0.000
perceptual lightness
Tailwind
zinc
500 · ΔE 35
Web-safe
#000000
exact match
Where it sits
Hue0° of 360°
Saturation0%
Lightness0%
Saturation × lightness field

Left edge is grey, right edge is full chroma; top is white, bottom is black. The dot is #000000.

Temperature
Warm ← → Cool50% cool

Near-neutral, so temperature is a whisper rather than a statement — the tinted siblings below show which way it can lean.

Luminance by channel
Red0%
Green0%
Blue0%

Green carries most of what the eye calls brightness — that is why WCAG weights it 0.7152.

About Vantablack

Vantablack is functionally #000000 taken to a physical extreme — a nanotube coating absorbing 99.965% of light, the “world’s blackest black,” whose EXCLUSIVE licensing to one artist ignited the art world’s most public color feud.

History

Surrey NanoSystems’ Vantablack (2014) absorbs almost all visible light, making 3D objects look like flat voids. Anish Kapoor’s exclusive art-use license enraged artists — Stuart Semple retaliated with the “world’s pinkest pink” (banned from Kapoor), a color war for the ages.

Psychology

The absence of nearly all light reads as void, mystery and the sublime — an unsettling perceptual black hole. It is less a color than a subtraction of vision, and owning it exclusively felt, to many, like owning darkness itself.

In design

On screen, just #000000 (21:1 with white) — no display can reproduce the real material. The exclusivity-feud lesson: Vantablack shows color as PROPERTY taken to absurdity — one artist licensing “the blackest black” sparked a genuine, ongoing color war.

In culture

BMW’s Vantablack car, Semple’s “pinkest pink” revenge (“not available to Anish Kapoor”), the blackest-black debates: the color that started a war.

Brands that own vantablack

Shades of vantablack

Every format

HEX#000000
HEX (8-digit)#000000ff
RGBrgb(0, 0, 0)
RGBArgba(0, 0, 0, 1)
HSLhsl(0, 0%, 0%)
HSV / HSBhsv(0, 0%, 0%)
HWBhwb(0 0% 100%)
CMYKcmyk(0%, 0%, 0%, 100%)
LABlab(0.0 0.0 0.0)
LCHlch(0.0 0.0 0.0)
OKLCHoklch(0.000 0.000 0.0)
XYZ (D65)xyz(0.00, 0.00, 0.00)
Decimal0
Display P3color(display-p3 0.000 0.000 0.000)
Web-safe#000000

Copy-ready code

every platformclick to select
/* CSS */
color: #000000;
background-color: #000000;
/* CSS custom property */
--brand: #000000;
/* Tailwind (arbitrary) */
class="text-[#000000] bg-[#000000]"
/* SCSS */
$brand: #000000;
/* SwiftUI */
Color(red: 0.000, green: 0.000, blue: 0.000)
/* UIKit */
UIColor(red: 0.000, green: 0.000, blue: 0.000, alpha: 1)
/* Android XML */
<color name="brand">#000000</color>
/* Android Compose */
Color(0xFF000000)
/* Flutter */
Color(0xFF000000)
/* Python / OpenCV (BGR) */
(0, 0, 0)
/* Python / PIL (RGB) */
(0, 0, 0)
/* Java AWT */
new Color(0, 0, 0)
/* .NET */
Color.FromArgb(255, 0, 0, 0)
/* OpenGL / Unity (0–1) */
(0.0000f, 0.0000f, 0.0000f, 1f)
/* LaTeX */
\definecolor{brand}{RGB}{0,0,0}
modern cssclick to select
/* mix without leaving CSS */
background: color-mix(in oklab, #000000 85%, white);
border-color: color-mix(in oklab, #000000 40%, transparent);
/* theme-aware in one line */
color: light-dark(#404040, #E0E0E0);
/* relative colour syntax */
--hover: hsl(from #000000 h s calc(l - 7));

Design tokens

The same ramp in the four formats a team actually needs. Paste one and the whole palette lands with it.

css custom propertiesclick to select
:root {
  --brand-50: #F7F7F7;
  --brand-100: #F0F0F0;
  --brand-200: #DEDEDE;
  --brand-300: #C7C7C7;
  --brand-400: #ABABAB;
  --brand-500: #8F8F8F;
  --brand-600: #7A7A7A;
  --brand-700: #666666;
  --brand-800: #525252;
  --brand-900: #3D3D3D;
  --brand-950: #000000;
  --brand: #000000;
  --brand-ink: #ffffff;
  --brand-surface: #F7F7F7;
  --brand-border: #D6D6D6;
  --brand-hover: #000000;
  --brand-pressed: #000000;
}
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
  :root {
    --brand-surface: #1C1C1C;
    --brand-ink: #E0E0E0;
  }
}
tailwind.config.jsclick to select
theme: {
  extend: {
    colors: {
      brand: {
        50: '#F7F7F7',
        100: '#F0F0F0',
        200: '#DEDEDE',
        300: '#C7C7C7',
        400: '#ABABAB',
        500: '#8F8F8F',
        600: '#7A7A7A',
        700: '#666666',
        800: '#525252',
        900: '#3D3D3D',
        950: '#000000',
        DEFAULT: '#000000',
      },
    },
  },
}
scss mapclick to select
$brand: (
  '50': #F7F7F7,
  '100': #F0F0F0,
  '200': #DEDEDE,
  '300': #C7C7C7,
  '400': #ABABAB,
  '500': #8F8F8F,
  '600': #7A7A7A,
  '700': #666666,
  '800': #525252,
  '900': #3D3D3D,
  '950': #000000,
);
$brand-base: #000000;
$brand-ink: #ffffff;

@function brand($step) { @return map-get($brand, $step); }
w3c design tokens (json)click to select
{
  "color": {
    "brand": {
      "50": { "$value": "#F7F7F7", "$type": "color" },
      "100": { "$value": "#F0F0F0", "$type": "color" },
      "200": { "$value": "#DEDEDE", "$type": "color" },
      "300": { "$value": "#C7C7C7", "$type": "color" },
      "400": { "$value": "#ABABAB", "$type": "color" },
      "500": { "$value": "#8F8F8F", "$type": "color" },
      "600": { "$value": "#7A7A7A", "$type": "color" },
      "700": { "$value": "#666666", "$type": "color" },
      "800": { "$value": "#525252", "$type": "color" },
      "900": { "$value": "#3D3D3D", "$type": "color" },
      "950": { "$value": "#000000", "$type": "color" }
    },
    "brandInk": { "$value": "#ffffff", "$type": "color" }
  }
}

Best text color

Only one of black and white can be right. This is the one, with the number that proves it.

Readable at a glance#ffffff on #000000 · 21.00:1
Use #ffffffAAA at every size.
Aa
12px
Aa
16px
Aa
24px
Aa
White text · 21.00:1 · recommended
AA pass · AA large pass · AAA pass
Aa
Black text · 1.00:1
AA fail · AA large fail · AAA fail
Reading the other direction: #000000 as text scores 21.00:1 on white and 1.00:1 on black.
Best tinted ink on it, if plain black or white feels flat: #F2F2F2 at 18.76:1.

Make it accessible

A contrast checker tells you that you failed. This tells you what to ship instead — same hue, same saturation, lightness moved only as far as WCAG demands.

The quick fox
#000000 · 21.00:1
AA on whitealready passes
#000000
The quick fox
#000000 · 21.00:1
AAA on whitealready passes
#000000
The quick fox
#ffffff · 21.00:1
AA on blackneeds a new hue
#ffffff
The quick fox
#ffffff · 21.00:1
AAA on blackneeds a new hue
#ffffff

Large text — 24px regular or 18.66px bold and above — only needs 3:1, so #000000 is enough for headings on white. Non-text elements such as icons, chart strokes and focus rings also sit at 3:1 under WCAG 2.2 (1.4.11).

Accessibility — WCAG contrast

Aa
#000000 on white: 21.00:1
AA ✓ pass · AA-large · AAA
Aa
#000000 on black: 1.00:1
AA ✗ fail · AA-large · AAA
Against the neutral ladder

Contrast is symmetric, so each row covers both directions: #000000 as text on that neutral, and that neutral as text on #000000.

NeutralRatioBoth directions
White21.00:1AaAa
Slate 5020.07:1AaAa
Slate 10019.17:1AaAa
Slate 20017.03:1AaAa
Slate 30014.14:1AaAa
Slate 4008.19:1AaAa
Slate 5004.41:1AaAa
Slate 6002.77:1AaAa
Slate 7002.03:1AaAa
Slate 8001.44:1AaAa
Slate 9001.18:1AaAa
Black1.00:1AaAa
Colour vision deficiency
true color
protanopia · #000000
deuteranopia · #000000
tritanopia · #000000

Roughly one man in twelve has some form of colour vision deficiency. If any of the three panels above is hard to tell apart from a neighbouring colour in your palette, add a shape, an icon or a label so the meaning does not rest on hue alone.

Color scale — 50 to 950

A Tailwind-shaped ramp built around this exact hex. #000000 is pinned to step 950; the rest hold its hue and let saturation ease off at the extremes so the pale end never turns neon.

#F7F7F7
#F0F0F0
#DEDEDE
#C7C7C7
#ABABAB
#8F8F8F
#7A7A7A
#666666
#525252
#3D3D3D
#000000
Base = 950Lightest = 50 · #F7F7F7Darkest = 950 · #000000Text step on white = 700
Perceptual ramp — OKLCH

The same eleven steps expressed in OKLCH, where equal lightness numbers actually look equally spaced. HSL ramps go muddy in the yellows and washed out in the blues; this one does not. Modern browsers render it natively — the hex ramp above is the fallback.

50100200300400500600700800900950
oklch tokensclick to select
:root {
  --brand-50: oklch(0.97 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-100: oklch(0.94 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-200: oklch(0.88 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-300: oklch(0.80 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-400: oklch(0.72 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-500: oklch(0.64 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-600: oklch(0.56 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-700: oklch(0.48 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-800: oklch(0.40 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-900: oklch(0.32 0.000 0.0);
  --brand-950: oklch(0.24 0.000 0.0);
}

Colors that work with #000000

Not a palette — a role sheet. Each swatch answers one question you will hit while building the component.

Text on it#ffffff
White wins here
Surface#F7F7F7
Tinted page background
Border#D6D6D6
Hairlines and dividers
Muted text#737373
Captions on the surface
Accent#000000
Second voice, not a rival
Dark variant#404040
Hover, pressed, headers
Light variant#F2F2F2
Selected rows, tints
Dark surface#1C1C1C
Dark-mode background
Hover#000000
One step down in lightness
Pressed#000000
Two steps down
Disabled#383838
Chroma pulled out
Focus ring#0B0909
Offset from the fill so it reads
Light mode
Everything in its place

Surface, border, heading and body all derive from this one hue, so the screen stays coherent without a second palette.

Primary actionSecondaryBadge
Dark mode
Same hue, inverted

Lightness flips, hue holds. The accent stays the anchor in both themes.

Primary actionSecondaryAccent

In real components

The same eight roles, wired into the interface patterns you will actually build with them. Every state below is a computed value, not a mock-up.

Buttons and states
Save changesHoverPressedDisabled
OutlineSubtleLinkFocused
Form field
you@company.com

Focus ring uses the light variant so the field still reads as one shape.

Send me product updates
Notice
Your export is ready

The file stays available for seven days. Download it before it expires.

NewBetaDraft
Data
Storage used68%
Acme LtdActive
NorthwindTrial
GlobexActive

How to use #000000

Derived from its contrast, chroma and lightness — not from taste.

Works well for
  • Body text and links on white
  • Borders, dividers and quiet backgrounds
  • Long-form reading surfaces
  • Headers, footers and dark-mode surfaces
  • Neutral UI chrome and typography
Use with care
  • Text on black or near-black surfaces
  • Black text placed on it
  • Pairing with a same-lightness hue — edges vibrate
Minimum size as text on white
Any size
Safe as a fill behind white type
Yes
Safe as a 1px border on white
Yes

Meaning and mood

What a colour in this family tends to signal, and how this particular chroma and lightness change the reading.

premiumseriousfocusedtimeless

Near-black is the luxury and editorial default, and the base layer of every dark theme.

With almost no chroma left, the family association is barely present; treat it as a neutral that happens to lean this way. The low lightness adds weight and formality.

Worth knowing

Pure black on a bright screen causes halation for many readers. A tinted near-black is kinder.

Reads as
  • FormalityHigh
  • EnergyLow
  • Weight100/100
  • TemperatureNeutral
  • ApproachabilityBalanced

Colour associations are cultural and vary by market. Treat these as a starting point for a conversation with your audience, not a finding about them.

Similar colors

One move away from this hex in each direction. Every swatch is its own page.

Color relationships

The wheel positions with their names attached, so you can grab the one you actually need.

Complementary#000000
Analogous left#000000
Analogous right#000000
Split-complement 1#000000
Split-complement 2#000000
Triadic 1#000000
Triadic 2#000000
Tetradic#000000
On the wheel
Base+30°−30°+120°+240°+180°0°

#000000 sits at 0°. Every dot is a harmony position and links to its own page in the table alongside.

RGB percentages

Red0.0%
Green0.0%
Blue0.0%
R · 0–255
0
0x00
G · 0–255
0
0x00
B · 0–255
0
0x00

CMYK percentages

Cyan0.0%
Magenta0.0%
Yellow0.0%
Key (black)100.0%

Total ink coverage is 100%. Most commercial presses cap around 300% — above that, sheets stop drying properly.

Color previews

#000000 text on a black background

contrast 1.00:1

Card sample

#000000 text on a white background

contrast 21.00:1

Card sample

#000000 on grey

19.17:1

#000000 on its own surface

19.60:1

#000000 on its dark surface

1.23:1

CSS3 live lab

Text font color

The quick brown fox

color: #000000;
Background color
Panel with #000000 background
background-color: #000000;
Text shadow — hex

Glowing headline

text-shadow: 2px 2px 8px #000000;
Text shadow — RGB

Soft neon halo

text-shadow: 0 0 14px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.45);
Div box shadow
Elevated card
box-shadow: 0 12px 32px -8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.45);
Border & gradient
Gradient panel
border: 3px solid #000000;
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #000000, #000000);
Gradient text

Gradient headline

background: linear-gradient(90deg, #000000, #000000);
-webkit-background-clip: text;
color: transparent;
Focus ring
Focused control
outline: 2px solid #000000;
outline-offset: 3px;
Underline & caret

Marked up text

text-decoration-color: #000000;
caret-color: #000000;
Left rule
Pull quote or callout
border-left: 4px solid #000000;
Ring + tint
Selected chip
background: #F2F2F2;
box-shadow: inset 0 0 0 2px #000000;
Conic badge
68%
background: conic-gradient(#000000 68%, #e2e8f0 0);

Transparency

What each alpha value actually composites to. The top row is #000000 over white; the bottom row is the same alpha over a checkerboard, so you can see what survives on a photo or a video.

Bottom row of hexes is the flattened result over white — use those when a design tool refuses transparency, or when you need a solid fallback.

alpha in every syntaxclick to select
rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)
rgb(0 0 0 / 50%)
#00000080
hsl(0 0% 0% / 50%)
color-mix(in srgb, #000000 50%, transparent)
Alpha8-digit hexFlat on white
10%#0000001a#E6E6E6
20%#00000033#CCCCCC
40%#00000066#999999
60%#00000099#666666
80%#000000cc#333333

Gradients from #000000

Six recipes, each built from this hex and shown with the exact CSS that produced it.

Elevation
Same hue, three lightnesses — safe anywhere
background: linear-gradient(135deg, #1F1F1F, #000000 45%, #404040);
Duotone
A short hue run reads richer than a flat fill
background: linear-gradient(120deg, #000000, #000000);
Complement sweep
Loud — keep it behind large type only
background: linear-gradient(90deg, #000000, #000000);
Spotlight
Hero panels and app headers
background: radial-gradient(120% 120% at 20% 0%, #2E2E2E 0%, #000000 45%, #404040 100%);
Soft wash
Section backgrounds that stay readable
background: linear-gradient(180deg, #F7F7F7, #ffffff);
Mesh
Ambient background, no image weight
background: radial-gradient(60% 60% at 15% 20%, #1A1A1A 0%, transparent 60%), radial-gradient(55% 55% at 85% 15%, #0F0F0F 0%, transparent 60%), radial-gradient(70% 70% at 50% 95%, #404040 0%, transparent 65%), #000000;

Monochromatic scale

Palettes built from #000000

Shades — darker

Tints — lighter

Tones — desaturated

Color harmonies

Nearest named colors

Ranked with CIEDE2000 across all 139 CSS keywords. Under ΔE 2 the eye stops telling them apart; over ΔE 10 they are plainly different colors.

#000000 in the real world

Where a color in this family tends to land, and the interface roles it is usually asked to play.

Industries
LuxuryEditorialPhotographyFashion
Common UI roles
BackgroundsBordersBody textDividers
Print note

Converts to four-color process without much drama. Proof it anyway.

On screens

Very dark values collapse into each other on cheap panels — leave more lightness between your darkest steps than the numbers suggest.

In dark mode

Too dim on dark surfaces at 1.00:1 — lift it to #ffffff for body text, or reserve it for fills.

Brand examples for vantablack are listed above — each one links through to its own page.

Explore nearby colors

Small, deliberate steps away from this hex — useful when you are hunting for the version of a colour that finally feels right.

Vantablack, answered

What is the Vantablack hex code?

On any screen, Vantablack is just #000000 — no display can reproduce a material that absorbs 99.965% of light.

Why is Vantablack controversial?

Anish Kapoor secured EXCLUSIVE art-use rights, enraging artists. Stuart Semple retaliated with the “world’s pinkest pink” (banned from Kapoor) — a public color war.

Can you own a color?

Vantablack pushed the question to absurdity — licensing “the blackest black” exclusively felt like owning darkness, and the resulting feud made color-ownership a mainstream debate.

What color is #000000?

#000000 is a deep muted near-black — the CSS keyword Black. It sits at 0° on the hue wheel with 0% saturation and 0% lightness, which reads as neutral.

What is the RGB value of #000000?

rgb(0, 0, 0) — 0 red, 0 green and 0 blue out of 255, or 0% / 0% / 0% by channel.

What is #000000 in HSL and HSV?

hsl(0, 0%, 0%) and hsv(0, 0%, 0%). HSL is what CSS takes; HSV is what your design tool's picker shows, which is why the saturation numbers rarely match.

Is #000000 a light or a dark color?

It is a dark color. Relative luminance is 0.0000 and perceived brightness is 0%, so white text on it reaches 21.00:1.

Should I use black or white text on #000000?

White. It scores 21.00:1 against #000000, versus 1.00:1 for black — AAA at any size.

Is #000000 accessible on a white background?

#000000 on white scores 21.00:1, which clears AAA at every size.

What is the complementary color of #000000?

#000000 sits directly opposite on the wheel. Softer options are the split-complements #000000 and #000000, which give the same contrast with far less vibration.

What colors go well with #000000?

For interface work: #F7F7F7 as the surface, #D6D6D6 for borders, #737373 for secondary text, #000000 as an accent and #404040 for hover and pressed states. For a palette, the analogous pair #000000 and #000000 stays calm, while #000000 is the loudest partner.

What is #000000 in CMYK for printing?

cmyk(0%, 0%, 0%, 100%). This is a screen-to-ink approximation — ask your printer for a proof before committing to a run.

Is #000000 warm or cool?

Neutral — it scores 50 on a scale where 0 is the warmest orange and 100 the coolest azure. Nudged warmer it becomes #060504; nudged cooler, #040506.

Which Tailwind color is closest to #000000?

The zinc family — its 500 step is #71717a, ΔE2000 35 away. That is a visible difference, so define #000000 as a custom token rather than reaching for the built-in.

How do I use #000000 in Tailwind CSS?

Inline it as an arbitrary value with bg-[#000000] or text-[#000000], or register the whole ramp under theme.extend.colors.brand so you get bg-brand-500 and friends. The generated 50–950 scale on this page is ready to paste into your config.

What is #000000 with 50% opacity?

rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5), or #00000080 in eight-digit hex. Over white that composites to #808080; over black, #000000.

Is #000000 a web-safe color?

Yes — it is one of the 216 colours in the classic web-safe cube.

What does the color #000000 mean?

As a near-black, it reads premium, serious, focused. Near-black is the luxury and editorial default, and the base layer of every dark theme. At this low chroma the association is faint; it behaves more like a neutral.

What gradient works with #000000?

The safest is same-hue elevation: linear-gradient(135deg, #1F1F1F, #000000 45%, #404040). For more colour, a short hue run to #000000 keeps it rich without turning muddy.

Work with #000000 in the Color Lab

Every tool opens with this colour already loaded.

Every value on this page is computed from #000000 at request time — conversions, contrast ratios and ΔE distances are calculated, never looked up.