Macabre Eggplant
Macabre Eggplant (#301254) is a deep indigo 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 (267°, 65%, 20%) 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 lime. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
French macabre, possibly from Macabre (the medieval Danse Macabre) or Hebrew meqabber (gravedigger). As a color modifier, macabre implies a deep-and-funereal-and-uncanny quality, the dark cool-gray of medieval-and-Victorian memento-mori iconography. Sits at the deep-and-funereal end of the grid, parallel to funereal with uncanny-and-grotesque overtone.
Solanum melongena, the South Asian fruit cultivated in India and East Asia for over four thousand years before reaching the Mediterranean via the medieval Arab agricultural revolution. The color refers to the skin of a ripe Italian Globe eggplant: a saturated, slightly red-shifted very deep purple with the polished finish of waxy fruit surface. Cooler than aubergine (its British synonym), warmer than indigo, with the kitchen weight of a vegetable identified almost entirely by its color.
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.