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Rich Pimento violet

#a91a78
Notes

Rich Pimento violet (#A91A78) 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 (321°, 73%, 38%) 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.

HEX
#a91a78
RGB
rgb(169, 26, 120)
HSL
hsl(321, 73%, 38%)
HWB
hwb(321 10% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(49.8% 0.194 346.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6082 0.1647 0.4596)
HSV
hsv(321, 85%, 66%)
LAB
lab(38.78% 61.88 -16.80)
LCH
lch(38.78% 64.12 344.81)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 85%, 29%, 34%)

Etymology

Rich
adjective

Old French riche, wealthy, abundant — applied to color since the medieval period for hues that read as plentiful in pigment. Rich red, rich brown: the implication is depth combined with saturation, a color that gives the eye more to absorb. Sits at the saturated mid-light corner of the engine's grid, slightly warmer than bold and deeper than vivid.

Pimento
modifier

Spanish pimiento, sweet-red-Iberian-capsicum. As a color modifier, pimento implies a sweet-red-Iberian-capsicum-and-allspice-berry quality, the visual register of Spanish-and-Jamaican-pimento hand-sweet-red-Iberian-capsicum-and-allspice-berry Spanish-and-Jamaican-pimento-and-allspice-berry pimento-and-sweet-red-Iberian-capsicum surfaces under Spanish-and-Jamaican-pimento-and-allspice-berry Iberian-and-Jamaican-Blue-Mountain Iberian-and-Jamaican-spice-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to chili and pepper 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.

#a91a78
Original
#334c7a
Protanopia
#5e6475
Deuteranopia
#b51249
Tritanopia
#3f3f3f
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).
AAon White
6.76:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon Black
3.11:1

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
##A91A78
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6082 0.1647 0.4596)
P3 has visible headroomOKLCH chroma 0.194

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.

Related Colors

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