Sinister Akāsh
Sinister Akāsh (#12236D) is a deep blue with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (229°, 72%, 25%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin sinister, left / unlucky — used in classical-augury for the unfavorable left-hand-side of bird-flight omen-reading. As a color modifier, sinister implies a deep-and-foreboding-and-uncanny quality, the dark of Gothic-novel atmospheric-shadow and threatening-presence. Sits at the deep-and-uncanny end of the grid, parallel to foreboding and menacing in atmospheric register.
The Sanskrit and Hindi word for sky or space — used in classical Indian philosophy as one of the five elements (pancha mahābhūta). Akāsh-bhūta names the elemental sky-blue in Vedic cosmology. The color refers to a North Indian summer sky at midday: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the optical brightness of subtropical atmospheric scatter.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.