Twilit Crocus
Twilit Crocus (#522482) is a deep indigo 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 (269°, 57%, 33%) 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 lime. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
An adjectival form of twilight, coined in the late nineteenth century. Twilit describes a color seen at twilight — the slight cooling and desaturation that low ambient light introduces. Sits in the deep-and-cool corner, lighter than somber and bluer than shadowed. Almost exclusively literary.
The genus Crocus — small autumn or spring corms that flower before their leaves emerge, push through snow in March, and include C. sativus, the source of saffron. The color refers to a fresh blue-violet spring crocus: a saturated, slightly violet-shifted deep blue with the satiny finish of a six-petaled cup catching morning light. Cooler than amethyst, warmer than iris, with the seasonal weight of a flower that arrives weeks before everything else.
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.