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Subterranean Indygo

#2d2a59
Notes

Subterranean Indygo (#2D2A59) is a deep 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 (244°, 36%, 26%) 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 yellow. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#2d2a59
RGB
rgb(45, 42, 89)
HSL
hsl(244, 36%, 26%)
HWB
hwb(244 16% 65%)
OKLCH
oklch(31.5% 0.082 283.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.1744 0.1651 0.3373)
HSV
hsv(244, 53%, 35%)
LAB
lab(19.78% 15.42 -28.00)
LCH
lch(19.78% 31.97 298.85)
CMYK
cmyk(49%, 53%, 0%, 65%)

Etymology

Subterranean
adjective

Latin sub-terraneus, under-ground. As a color modifier, subterranean implies the cool deep darkness of cave-and-tunnel interiors where ambient daylight has been completely eliminated. Sits at the deep-and-cool end of the grid, where the hue reads as cellar-dwelling rather than night-sky deep.

Indygo
noun

Polish for indigo (Indigofera tinctoria) — adopted into Polish color terminology during the 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's textile-trade contact with Ottoman indigo merchants. Indygo color refers to a freshly indygo-dyed Polish-folk linen: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the matte finish of multi-bath fermentation indigo on hand-spun linen. Cooler than English indigo and warmer than Russian fioletovyy.

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 explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

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.

#2d2a59
Original
#16315b
Protanopia
#142e58
Deuteranopia
#1e343d
Tritanopia
#2e2e2e
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

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.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon White
13.23:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon Black
1.59:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##2D2A59
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.1744 0.1651 0.3373)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.082

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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