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AI Color

Shades of Gray

Eleven steps of gray from the lightest tint to the darkest shade, all sharing hue 213° and 8% saturation so they work together as a set. A pure neutral grey looks slightly dirty next to saturated colour, so most good greys are tinted.

Using a gray ramp in a design system

A ramp like this one is the unit of work in a modern design system. Rather than choosing individual colors for each component, you assign roles to steps: the 50 and 100 steps become backgrounds and hover states, the 200 and 300 steps become borders and dividers, the 500 step is the brand color itself, and the 700 through 900 steps carry text and pressed states.

Because every step here shares a hue and saturation, the resulting interface reads as one coherent surface. The moment you hand-pick a color that sits outside the ramp, it will look subtly wrong even to people who cannot articulate why.

Check the steps you intend to pair before you ship them. The lightest tints will not carry text on white, and the darkest shades will not carry white text at small sizes in every case. Run them through the contrast checker once and record the results.

Gray color palettes

Full palettes built around gray, ready to copy as CSS or Tailwind tokens.

  • Soft Winter Electric Lantern

    413

    Soft Winter Electric Lantern color palette using #e5c0e7, #aed7da, #9287a0, #69757f, #403c80.

  • Gray Electric Signal

    372

    Gray Electric Signal color palette using #dcdfe6, #c1c9d5, #6f84a3, #424f6e, #2a354a.

  • Skin Tone Frosted Drift

    337

    Skin Tone Frosted Drift color palette using #eff5e4, #cfc4ca, #a7a496, #89434e, #60554c.

  • Metallic Golden Orchard

    315

    Metallic Golden Orchard color palette using #dde1db, #cabbc0, #9ea18f, #76635e, #5f5234.

  • Gray Washed Archive

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    Gray Washed Archive color palette using #e1e4e9, #c6cdd9, #7583a7, #414d6c, #273046.

  • Kitchen Electric Morning

    279

    Kitchen Electric Morning color palette using #e9f4ee, #e5d5c7, #86d088, #797a66, #626b5b.

  • Gray Smoked Meadow

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    Gray Smoked Meadow color palette using #d9dce3, #c8cdd9, #7a88aa, #41506c, #2c394f.

  • Gray Electric Archive

    272

    Gray Electric Archive color palette using #e2e4ea, #c7ced9, #7381a5, #43546f, #2a344b.

See all gray color palettes

Shades of other colors

Shades of gray FAQ

How many shades of gray are there?

In principle there are millions, because a shade is any value along the lightness axis of a hue. In practice a design system needs about eleven steps, which is exactly what this page provides: five tints above the base, the base itself, and five shades below it.

What is the hex code for gray?

The base gray on this page is #7c8590, which is hsl(213, 8%, 53%). Every other swatch keeps the same hue and saturation and varies only lightness, so they all belong together.

What is the difference between a tint, a tone and a shade?

A tint is the color mixed with white, a shade is the color mixed with black, and a tone is the color mixed with grey, which lowers saturation. This page shows tints and shades; use the color mixer if you want tones.

Which shade of gray should I use for text?

Use the darkest swatch that still reads as gray rather than black. On this page that is generally the 800 or 900 step, which reaches 15.6:1 against white.