Commanding Stokesia
Commanding Stokesia (#503DB4) 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 (250°, 49%, 47%) 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
Latin commendāre, to entrust / order — present-participle of command. As a color modifier, commanding implies a saturated-and-authoritative quality where the hue claims visual leadership of its surrounding palette. Sits at the bold-and-authoritative end of the grid, parallel to authoritative and imperial in usage.
North American Stokes' aster (Stokesia laevis) — a southeastern-coastal-plain Asteraceae native cultivated as a ground-cover perennial with fringed lavender ray-flowers. Stokesia color refers to a fully opened Stokesia laevis flower head: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the velvet finish of finely fringed ray-flowers around a paler central disk. Named for Jonathan Stokes, an English physician-botanist of the 18th century.
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.