Gray (#808080) is a medium, grayish gray. It is a CSS named color, so you can use it in stylesheets as color: gray as well as by its hex code. In RGB it is rgb(128, 128, 128); in HSL, hsl(0, 0%, 50%).
| Hex | #808080 |
|---|---|
| CSS name | gray (alias: grey) |
| RGB | rgb(128, 128, 128) |
| HSL | hsl(0, 0%, 50%) |
| CMYK | 0%, 0%, 0%, 50% |
| CSS example | color: #808080; background-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); |
The hue is calculated at seven exact lightness levels for use in backgrounds, borders, text and hover states. These values are not substituted with nearby named colors.
#808080 is a neutral: it carries little to no hue, so wheel-based schemes like complementary or triadic would simply return the same gray. Neutrals work differently — use the ramp above for backgrounds, borders and text, and pair #808080 with a saturated accent for links, buttons and highlights. Each of these accents reads clearly against #808080:
On a #808080 background, black text gives the better contrast. WCAG requires 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text (AA), or 7:1 and 4.5:1 for AAA.
| Text color | Contrast ratio | Normal text | Large text |
|---|---|---|---|
| White text (#ffffff) | 3.95:1 | Fails | AA |
| Black text (#000000) | 5.32:1 | AA | AAA |
The CSS named colors closest to #808080:
Turn #808080 into a full scheme with the Color Palette Generator, blend it into a background with the CSS Gradient Generator, or browse all named colors.