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Bastioned Brazilwood

#aa3a79
Notes

Bastioned Brazilwood (#AA3A79) 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 (326°, 49%, 45%) 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 teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#aa3a79
RGB
rgb(170, 58, 121)
HSL
hsl(326, 49%, 45%)
HWB
hwb(326 23% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(52.7% 0.160 349.2)
HSV
hsv(326, 66%, 67%)
LAB
lab(42.70% 51.86 -11.44)
LCH
lch(42.70% 53.10 347.56)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 66%, 29%, 33%)

Etymology

Bastioned
adjective

Italian bastionato, fortified-with-bastions — past-participle of bastion, derived from bastia (fortified-tower). As a color modifier, bastioned implies a saturated-and-fortified-and-projecting quality, the deep-rich color of Vauban-period military-fortress star-fort projecting-bastion stone-architecture. Sits at the bold-and-fortified end of the grid, parallel to fortified and buttressed.

Brazilwood
noun

Caesalpinia echinata, the dye-source tree of Atlantic-coast South America — so abundant in Portuguese-controlled territory that it gave the country its name. The color refers to brazilein-dyed silk: a saturated, slightly cool deep red with the warm-tone of brazilwood pigment. Deeper than madder, warmer than cochineal.

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

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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.

#aa3a79
Original
#49587b
Protanopia
#696c76
Deuteranopia
#b63554
Tritanopia
#565656
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
5.85:1
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
3.59:1

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