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Magisterial Indygo

#3e39a0
Notes

Magisterial Indygo (#3E39A0) 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 (243°, 47%, 43%) 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.

HEX
#3e39a0
RGB
rgb(62, 57, 160)
HSL
hsl(243, 47%, 43%)
HWB
hwb(243 22% 37%)
OKLCH
oklch(41.6% 0.161 278.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2398 0.2242 0.6045)
HSV
hsv(243, 64%, 63%)
LAB
lab(30.61% 33.49 -55.31)
LCH
lch(30.61% 64.66 301.20)
CMYK
cmyk(61%, 64%, 0%, 37%)

Etymology

Magisterial
adjective

Latin magisterium, teacher's office — adjectival suffix -al. As a color modifier, magisterial implies a saturated-and-authoritative-and-formal quality, the deep-rich color of Qing-dynasty civil-magistrate court-and-ritual textiles and Imperial-Examination scholar-class livery. Sits at the bold-and-authoritative end of the grid, parallel to authoritative and commanding.

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.

#3e39a0
Original
#004ca3
Protanopia
#00449e
Deuteranopia
#005367
Tritanopia
#414141
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
9.14:1
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
2.30:1

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
##3E39A0
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2398 0.2242 0.6045)
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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