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Sturdy Cygnus violet

#900b64
Notes

Sturdy Cygnus violet (#900B64) is a deep magenta 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 (320°, 86%, 30%) places it in the highly saturated band at a dark 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 green. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#900b64
RGB
rgb(144, 11, 100)
HSL
hsl(320, 86%, 30%)
HWB
hwb(320 4% 44%)
OKLCH
oklch(43.8% 0.178 347.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5169 0.1149 0.3827)
HSV
hsv(320, 92%, 56%)
LAB
lab(32.01% 56.62 -14.91)
LCH
lch(32.01% 58.55 345.24)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 92%, 31%, 44%)

Etymology

Sturdy
adjective

Old French estourdi, stunned, reckless — drifted in English to mean robust, well-built. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as durable and unfussy — the working browns of saddle leather, the working greens of pasture wool. Sits in the bold-and-warm corner alongside robust and solid.

Cygnus
modifier

Latin cygnus, swan. As a color modifier, cygnus implies a swan-flying-and-Northern-Cross quality, the visual register of Cygnus-Swan-and-Northern-Cross hand-swan-flying-and-Northern-Cross Cygnus-Swan-and-Northern-Cross-and-Bortle-1-sky cygnus-and-swan-flying-and-Northern-Cross surfaces under Cygnus-Swan-and-Northern-Cross-and-Bortle-1-sky August-and-September-late-summer-zenith Milky-Way-stellar-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to deneb and lyra in usage.

violet
noun

Viola odorata, the European sweet violet — small, fragrant, and the original meaning of the color name in English (the Violet of the rainbow). The color refers to a fresh sweet violet blossom in late winter: a saturated, slightly red-shifted deep blue-purple with the matte finish of small five-petaled flower. Cooler than amethyst, warmer than indigo, with the perfumed weight of a flower used in Roman garlands and Victorian eau de toilette.

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 explore

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.

#900b64
Original
#273d66
Protanopia
#4e5361
Deuteranopia
#9b003a
Tritanopia
#2e2e2e
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
8.69:1
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
2.42:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##900B64
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5169 0.1149 0.3827)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.178

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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