Obsidian Pamir
Obsidian Pamir (#403081) is a true indigo 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 (252°, 46%, 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
Volcanic glass — molten rhyolite cooled too quickly to crystallize. Mined since the Stone Age for blade-edges (sharper than surgical steel) and ground into mirrors by the Aztec priesthood for divination. The color refers to a polished obsidian flake from Mount Hekla or Glass Buttes, Oregon: a deep, slightly blue-shifted black with the high-gloss conchoidal fracture of natural glass. Cooler than onyx, glossier than coal.
Central Asian high-altitude range straddling Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Kyrgyzstan — known as Bām-i Dunyā (the Roof of the World) for its 7,000m peaks and intense alpine sky. Pamir color refers to a Pamir clear-day alpine sky over the Wakhan Corridor: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the optical complexity of high-altitude Rayleigh-scattered atmospheric indigo light.
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.