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Solid Allium

#542ea3
Notes

Solid Allium (#542EA3) is a true 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 (259°, 56%, 41%) 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.

HEX
#542ea3
RGB
rgb(84, 46, 163)
HSL
hsl(259, 56%, 41%)
HWB
hwb(259 18% 36%)
OKLCH
oklch(42.1% 0.176 291.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3090 0.1875 0.6155)
HSV
hsv(259, 72%, 64%)
LAB
lab(30.60% 44.58 -57.05)
LCH
lch(30.60% 72.40 308.00)
CMYK
cmyk(48%, 72%, 0%, 36%)

Etymology

Solid
adjective

Latin solidus, firm, dense — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as continuous and unbroken: a solid blue is one with no variation across the surface. Implies high saturation combined with optical density. Sits in the bold-bucket alongside strong and robust, slightly more focused on uniformity.

Allium
noun

Ornamental onion (Allium christophii, A. giganteum, A. aflatunense) — Central Asian native bulbs cultivated as architectural early-summer perennials with spherical umbels on bare stems. Allium color refers to a fully bloomed A. christophii umbel: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the matte finish of dense radiating six-tepalled florets. The architectural allium globe drifted into mid-20th-century cottage-garden style via Beth Chatto.

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 explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

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.

#542ea3
Original
#004aa6
Protanopia
#0046a1
Deuteranopia
#3b4c65
Tritanopia
#3f3f3f
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

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.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon White
9.14:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon Black
2.30:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##542EA3
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3090 0.1875 0.6155)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.176

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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