Drowned Kikyo
Drowned Kikyo (#64237C) is a deep violet 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 (284°, 56%, 31%) 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
The past participle of drown — used as a color word principally in literary contexts for the dark blue-green of deep water and the muted browns of waterlogged earth. Drowned implies darkness with the optical complexity of a fluid medium absorbing and scattering light. Sits in the deep-and-cool quadrant, near sunken.
Japanese 桔梗, the balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus) — a wild perennial of Japanese mountainsides whose star-shaped corolla unfurls from an inflated bud. The flower is one of the Seven Autumn Flowers of classical waka poetry. Kikyo color refers to a fully unfurled Platycodon grandiflorus corolla: a saturated, slightly cool deep violet with the velvet finish of fresh balloon-flower petals.
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.