Bold Kohbai
Bold Kohbai (#981E82) is a true 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 (311°, 67%, 36%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. 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 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.
Japanese 紅梅, red plum-blossom (Prunus mume var. kohbai) — the deep-pink-flowered cultivar of Japanese plum, a traditional New Year color in Heian-period kasane no irome layered silks. Kohbai color refers to a fully bloomed kohbai plum branch in February: a saturated, slightly cool deep magenta with the velvet finish of fresh plum-blossom petals against bare branches in early-spring snow.
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.