Severe Pavlova
Severe Pavlova (#470136) is a deep magenta 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 (315°, 97%, 14%) places it in the highly saturated band at a dark lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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
Latin sevērus, strict / serious. As a color modifier, severe implies a deep-and-uncompromising-formal quality, the dark plain-textile color of Cistercian and Calvinist anti-decorative interior aesthetic. Sits at the deep-and-formal end of the grid, parallel to austere and stern in tone.
Australian-and-New-Zealand meringue dessert — named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (1881–1931), traditionally topped with deep-magenta passionfruit-and-strawberry coulis. Pavlova color refers to a freshly assembled Pavlova with passionfruit-and-strawberry coulis on white meringue: a saturated, slightly cool deep magenta with the matte finish of anthocyanin-rich fruit-coulis on baked egg-white meringue.
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.