Get inspired with slate design templates.
The color slate is a medium gray with a soft blue hue that’s powerfully reminiscent of integrity and distinction.
Inspiration in the color slate.
Learn the history and meaning of the color slate, an unexpected neutral with rich versatility.
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How to use the color slate.
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Tap into the psychology of the color slate.
The color slate stirs a certain response in us. Slate color is closely tied to gray, and many of its perceived meanings are similar. The English phrase “gray area” represents the color slate’s maturity in decision making, for example. The color slate also provides nuance in a visual design.
Add weight with slate.
The color slate is indeed a neutral, but a dark one. This medium-deep gray is considered a “heavy color.” The color slate adds visual weight to a design or interior. To fill empty corners or elements, use the color slate to add an air of permanence or fortitude.
Slate color is adaptable like a chameleon.
Slate color can give you a foundation for the most elaborate ideas in graphic design and interior décor. The color slate is a medium neutral, so accent colors sit out strikingly when paired with the color slate. You can use slate color as a backdrop to any project because it follows the cues of the more commanding colors you use with it.
Combine slate with other colors.
Slate color is a neutral that’s often forgotten. Its surprising flexibility allows you to play within any color palette. For a modern look, combine slate color with other neutrals like sand or khaki. Bring in bright accent colors like orange or yellow for a youthful look. The color slate next to any blue or purple brings out its blue undertones and provides a more serious look for projects.
Information about slate color.
The slate HEX code picker is #C0C2C9. This is a medium gray roughly the color of dark concrete.
The color slate can be achieved in a RGB space with 192 red, 194 green, and 201 blue. Slate color can be achieved in a CMYK color space with 4% cyan, 3% magenta, 0% yellow, and 21% black.
What is the meaning of the color slate?
The color slate took its name from slate rock, a material used primarily in construction. The color slate is as dark as natural flagstone. Slate material can vary in hue depending on its formation. The official color slate, however, has been derived from the typical medium-deep gray of the stone, with undertones of blue and green.
Slate color is gray with a soft azure tinge. This shade of gray serves as a rich neutral base in art, architecture, fashion, and design.
The history of slate color.
The color slate was named after the natural material of the same name.
Slate rock is the product of soft rock buried thousands of years ago that was subjected to incredible heat and pressure. Over the ages, that soft stone became slate. Slate material has been used in tools and buildings by humans since prehistoric times. Neolithic hunters first used slate to tip arrows and spears, and then tens of thousands of years later they began to use it in construction.
Slate color entered English in 1743.
The color slate is defined as a medium-deep gray with blue and green undertones. “Slate gray” was the first term using slate to describe a color, recorded in English in 1705 (almost 400 years after slate first entered English to describe slate rock). By the late 1700s, “slate color” and “slate blue” both entered English, too.
The use of slate color rose in tandem with the use of slate rock.
Because slate became more familiar to the masses when quarrying technology advanced in the 19th century, the color slate rose with the boom in slate rock. In Spain, 90% of roofing today is still based in slate. The color slate enjoyed even greater popularity after the turn of the 20th century when minimalism and neutral colors took over interior design.
The color slate across different cultures.
The color slate is tied to neutrality in common English sayings.
There are several popular phrases in English that use the term “slate,” all referring to the flat surface (made of slate stone) that was historically used as a writing tablet. The color of that writing tablet lingers in the back of English speakers’ minds when they say things like, “to start with a clean slate.” The term “slaty” is also used commonly to describe birds with slate color plumage.
Slate color in times of war.
The Fleet Air Arm (a branch of the Royal Navy Reserve in WWII) had an aircraft called the Temperate Day Scheme that had the color slate gray on the lower body and a color called extra dark sea gray on the top sides of the aircraft. This combination of slate color was called “slime over sludge” by the troops.
Slate color has come to roost in technology, too.
The color slate also made a mark in the tech industry. The original consumer computers in the 1980s had slate color exterior shells. Today, many supercomputers are still housed in containers of slate color. Over the course of iPhone generations, there was also a time when the iPhone and iPad Mini swept the market in a dark slate gray body.