Forthright Beet
Forthright Beet (#A0428A) is a true magenta 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 (314°, 42%, 44%) 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 forð-riht, straight ahead, direct. Used as a color modifier in Anglo-Saxon-revival contexts for hues that read as honest and unguarded. Forthright red, forthright blue: the saturation is full, the hue is presented without ornamentation or qualification. Sits in the bold-bucket center alongside frank and direct.
Beta vulgaris, the cultivated beet — the same species as Swiss chard, sugar beet, and the table beet, distinguished only by selective breeding for different parts of the plant. The color refers to a freshly cut red beet's exposed flesh: a saturated, slightly cool very deep red-purple with the matte finish of high-betalain pigment. Cooler than wine, warmer than mulberry, with the kitchen-table weight of a root that stains everything it touches.
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.