Stark Bluebell
Stark Bluebell (#2A2C87) is a true blue with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (239°, 53%, 35%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary yellow. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English stearc, stiff / strong — sharing root with German stark and Dutch sterk. As a color modifier, stark implies a deep-and-uncompromising contrast where the hue stands without modulation against its substrate. Sits at the deep-and-formal end of the grid, parallel to severe with sharper visual register.
Hyacinthoides non-scripta, the wild English bluebell that carpets ancient British woodlands in late April — half the world's population grows in the United Kingdom. The color refers to a freshly opened bluebell flower: a saturated, slightly violet-shifted blue with the matte finish of a downward-hanging bell. Cooler than periwinkle, warmer than cobalt, with the seasonal weight of a flower so closely tied to one country's spring landscape.
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.