Gloomy Kyomurasaki
Gloomy Kyomurasaki (#440E59) is a deep violet 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 (283°, 73%, 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 green. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Middle English gloumen, to look glum — adjectival suffix -y. As a color modifier, gloomy implies a deep-and-cool-and-overcast quality, the dark cool-gray of Yorkshire-Moors and Scottish-Highlands late-autumn atmospheric-overcast sky. Sits at the deep-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to sullen and somber.
Kyoto purple (京紫) — the warmer red-tinted purple of the Heian-period imperial court at Kyoto, distinguished from the cooler Edo-period edomurasaki. Kyomurasaki color refers to a Kyoto-court ceremonial kariginu hunting robe: a saturated, slightly cool deep violet with the silk luster of multi-bath gromwell-root-and-akane (madder) dye on woven silk crepe. Slightly warmer than Edomurasaki.
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.