Frantic Khiva
Frantic Khiva (#9B87EA) is a soft indigo 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 (252°, 70%, 72%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary yellow. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Greek phrenitikós, frenzied — adjectival suffix, sharing root with phrenitis (delirium). As a color modifier, frantic implies a saturated-and-rushed-and-overactive quality, the bright color of Memphis-Group 1980s-design over-the-top saturated visual-rhythm. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to frenetic and manic in usage.
Ancient Khanate of Central Asia, on the Silk Road in modern Uzbekistan — its old-walled inner-city Itchan Kala remains a living complex of indigo-and-turquoise-tiled medreseh and minaret façades. Khiva color refers to the deep-blue tilework of the Islam Khoja minaret in Itchan Kala: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the glossy finish of cobalt-glazed Khwarezmian ceramic tile under the high desert sun.
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.
Wide gamut
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.
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.