Lighten navy color palette to be clearly distinguishable as blue

[Copilot]

The navy colors introduced in the previous restyle were too dark — visually indistinguishable from black. Lightens all three navy variables so they read unmistakably as blue while preserving contrast against the offwhite background and white text.

Changes

• _sass/_variables.scss — Updated three navy color values:

// Before → After
$navy-color:       #1b2a4a → #2b4a7c;  // base: near-black → medium navy
$navy-color-light: #2c4a7c → #3d6098;  // hover: barely distinct → visibly lighter
$navy-color-dark:  #0f1b33 → #1a3355;  // footer bg: extremely dark → dark but clearly blue-toned

No changes to _sass/_themes.scss — it already references the variable names, so updates propagate automatically.

Original prompt

Goal

The navy blue colors from the previous restyle PR (#4) are too dark — they look almost black. Lighten the entire navy palette so the blue is clearly distinguishable and feels more vibrant/recognizable as blue.

Current State (on main after PR #4 merged)

In _sass/_variables.scss:

$navy-color: #1b2a4a !default;        // too dark, looks black
$navy-color-light: #2c4a7c !default;  // hover state, also quite dark  
$navy-color-dark: #0f1b33 !default;   // footer bg, extremely dark
$steel-blue-color: #6b8db5 !default;  // dark mode accent (this one is fine)

Desired Changes

Update _sass/_variables.scss

Lighten all three navy variables to clearly read as blue rather than near-black:

• $navy-color: change from #1b2a4a → #2b4a7c (a medium navy that is unmistakably blue)
• $navy-color-light: change from #2c4a7c → #3d6098 (lighter navy for hover — visible step lighter)
• $navy-color-dark: change from #0f1b33 → #1a3355 (dark navy for footer — still dark but clearly blue-toned)

These new values should:

• Be clearly recognizable as blue/navy (not near-black)
• Still maintain good contrast against the offwhite background (#f5f0eb) and white text
• Have a visible difference between the three shades (base, hover, dark)
• Keep the overall professional academic look

No changes needed to _sass/_themes.scss

The theme file already references the variable names ($navy-color, $navy-color-light, $navy-color-dark), so updating the variables will automatically propagate everywhere.

This pull request was created from Copilot chat.

---

✨ Let Copilot coding agent set things up for you — coding agent works faster and does higher quality work when set up for your repo.