Substantial Alexandria
Substantial Alexandria (#9C40AD) is a true violet with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (291°, 46%, 46%) 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
Latin substantia, substance — adjectival suffix -al, derived from sub-stāre (to stand under). As a color modifier, substantial implies a saturated-and-weighty-and-material quality where the hue carries visual mass and presence. Sits at the bold-and-weighty end of the grid, parallel to weighty and hefty in usage.
Hellenistic Egyptian capital founded by Alexander the Great (332 BCE) — the Library of Alexandria's parchment dye works produced Tyrian purple manuscript-binding leather for the imperial Roman library. Alexandria color refers to a Library of Alexandria-bound Tyrian parchment fragment: a saturated, slightly cool deep violet with the matte finish of multi-bath Murex shellfish dye on tanned Egyptian goatskin.
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.
This color is chromatic enough that authoring it as P3 native (instead of clamping to sRGB) gives a perceptibly more saturated render on wide-gamut displays — modern Macs, iPhones, iPads, and most recent OLED laptops.