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Bold Tulip

#6c237e
Notes

Bold Tulip (#6C237E) 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 (288°, 57%, 32%) 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.

HEX
#6c237e
RGB
rgb(108, 35, 126)
HSL
hsl(288, 57%, 32%)
HWB
hwb(288 14% 51%)
OKLCH
oklch(40.9% 0.156 319.0)
HSV
hsv(288, 72%, 49%)
LAB
lab(29.15% 45.68 -36.44)
LCH
lch(29.15% 58.44 321.42)
CMYK
cmyk(14%, 72%, 0%, 51%)

Etymology

Bold
adjective

Old English beald, brave, courageous — a quality word that crossed over to color in the late seventeenth century. Bold describes a color that asserts itself: high saturation combined with mid lightness, where the hue presents itself without compromise. Sits at the center of the bold-bucket grid, near strong and rich. Closer to a presence word than a pigment word.

Tulip
noun

The genus Tulipa — Central Asian bulbs cultivated in Ottoman gardens, brought to Europe in the sixteenth century, and famously the subject of tulipomania in the 1630s Dutch Republic. The color refers to a deep purple Tulipa hybrid in spring bloom: a saturated, slightly red-shifted deep purple with the satiny finish of a six-petaled goblet. Cooler than orchid, warmer than indigo, with the cultivation history of a flower that briefly cost more than houses.

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

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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.

#6c237e
Original
#004081
Protanopia
#29477c
Deuteranopia
#6c344e
Tritanopia
#393939
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
9.64:1
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
2.18:1

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