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Stormy Heraldry

#311f87
Notes

Stormy Heraldry (#311F87) 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 (250°, 63%, 33%) 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
#311f87
RGB
rgb(49, 31, 135)
HSL
hsl(250, 63%, 33%)
HWB
hwb(250 12% 47%)
OKLCH
oklch(34.0% 0.161 281.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.1817 0.1246 0.5086)
HSV
hsv(250, 77%, 53%)
LAB
lab(21.51% 38.81 -54.86)
LCH
lch(21.51% 67.20 305.27)
CMYK
cmyk(64%, 77%, 0%, 47%)

Etymology

Stormy
adjective

Old English storm, storm — adjectival suffix -y. As a color modifier, stormy implies a deep-and-turbulent-and-cool-shifted quality, the dark cool-gray of Force-9-gale atmospheric-turbulence sky. Sits at the deep-and-turbulent end of the grid, parallel to thunderous and tempestuous in atmospheric register.

Heraldry
noun

Old French heraudie, herald-craft — the medieval European armorial-bearings system, where the heraldic tincture purpure (one of the rare stains) is rendered as a deep blue-violet on shields-and-banners since the 13th century. Heraldry color refers to a 14th-century French armorial-roll purpure tincture: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the matte finish of vermilion-and-azurite-mixed armorial pigment.

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.

#311f87
Original
#00378a
Protanopia
#003085
Deuteranopia
#003d51
Tritanopia
#2a2a2a
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
12.53:1
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
1.68:1

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
##311F87
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.1817 0.1246 0.5086)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.161

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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