Stately Pasqueflower
Stately Pasqueflower (#4C42C2) is a true blue with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (245°, 51%, 51%) 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
An adjectival form of state, condition of dignity. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for the deep saturated jewel tones of formal ceremony — the deep blue of a robes-of-state, the deep red of a state-banquet velvet. Sits in the bold-and-formal corner alongside imperial and royal, with slightly less institutional weight.
Eurasian Pulsatilla vulgaris — Easter flower in Old English from its mid-spring Pasch / pascha (Easter) blooming season across European chalk grassland. Pasqueflower color refers to a fully opened Pulsatilla vulgaris sepal-cup: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the silky finish of long-haired sepals around a yellow-stamened center. The plant is the floral emblem of South Dakota.
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.