Velvety Swamphen
Velvety Swamphen (#4C328D) 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 (257°, 48%, 37%) 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 lime. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
An adjectival form of velvet, used since the eighteenth century for colors that read as if they had the matte light-absorbing quality of velvet. Implies high saturation combined with a non-glossy surface — the matte richness of a deep wine in a fabric rather than in a glass. Sits in the bold-and-deep corner of the grid alongside plush and lush.
Australasian Porphyrio melanotus — a large Rallidae shorebird with dark blue-violet plumage and a brilliant red beak-and-frontal-shield. Swamphen color refers to a Porphyrio melanotus in profile in a Murray-Darling wetland: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the iridescent satin finish of structurally colored feather barbs. Closely related to the Pukeko of New Zealand and the Purple Gallinule of the Americas.
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.