Grave Hatoba
Grave Hatoba (#550E5A) is a deep violet with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (296°, 73%, 20%) 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 green. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin gravis, heavy — also the noun grave (burial pit). As a color modifier, grave implies a deep-and-formal seriousness where the hue carries weight beyond its lightness alone. Sits at the deep-and-solemn end of the grid, parallel to solemn and funereal in tone.
Japanese 鳩羽, pigeon-wing (鳩羽色, hatobane-iro) — the deep iridescent blue-violet of the Streptopelia orientalis (Eastern Turtle Dove) breast plumage, named in the Heian Engishiki (927 CE) as a courtly color. Hatoba color refers to a Streptopelia orientalis breast feather: a saturated, slightly cool deep violet with the iridescent satin finish of structurally colored feather barbs.
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.