Highborn Hesperis
Highborn Hesperis (#851D8D) 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°, 66%, 33%) 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
Old English hēah-boren, high-born — past-participle of bear. As a color modifier, highborn implies a saturated-and-aristocratic-and-elite quality, the deep-rich color of pre-modern English high-born aristocratic-class livery-and-armorial bearings. Sits at the bold-and-aristocratic end of the grid, parallel to noble and aristocratic in usage.
Eurasian Dame's rocket (Hesperis matronalis) — an evening-fragrant Brassicaceae perennial whose deep-violet four-petaled flowers naturalized across European hedgerows since the Roman era. Hesperis color refers to a fully bloomed Hesperis matronalis terminal raceme: a saturated, slightly cool deep violet with the velvet finish of fresh four-petaled flowers. The genus name comes from the Greek hespéra (evening), after the dusk-fragrance peak.
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.