Suffocating Indaco
Suffocating Indaco (#1D2D82) 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 (230°, 64%, 31%) 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 suffocāre, to choke — present-participle of suffocate. As a color modifier, suffocating implies a deep-and-overwhelming-and-pressing quality where the hue overwhelms the eye's capacity to discern surface detail. Sits at the deep-and-overwhelming end of the grid, parallel to smothering with breath-restricting register.
The Italian word for indigo — borrowed via Greek indikon (Indian thing). Indaco in Italian art vocabulary refers specifically to the deep-blue plant-dye pigment used in Italian Renaissance painting for the Marian mantles and aristocratic dress. The color refers to indaco pigment in tempera: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue. The Italian cousin of indigo.
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.