Garish Konjō
Garish Konjō (#55ADFD) is a true azure 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 (209°, 98%, 66%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Middle English garen, to stare — adjectival suffix -ish. As a color modifier, garish implies a saturated-and-eye-stunning-and-overdone quality, the bright color of Las-Vegas-and-Coney-Island over-the-top neon-marquee display. Sits at the bright-and-flamboyant end of the grid, parallel to gaudy and lurid in usage.
Japanese konjō (紺青) — deep blue-azure, the saturated deep navy used in Edo-period samurai inner robes and Buddhist mandala backgrounds. Distinct from konpeki by its slightly cooler shift toward navy. The color refers to a konjō-dyed silk: a saturated, slightly cool dark blue with the satin finish of multi-bath dyed silk.
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.