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Adamant Bordo

#b538a5
Notes

Adamant Bordo (#B538A5) 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 (308°, 53%, 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.

HEX
#b538a5
RGB
rgb(181, 56, 165)
HSL
hsl(308, 53%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(308 22% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(56.2% 0.200 333.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6554 0.2566 0.6289)
HSV
hsv(308, 69%, 71%)
LAB
lab(46.14% 61.91 -32.58)
LCH
lch(46.14% 69.96 332.24)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 69%, 9%, 29%)

Etymology

Adamant
adjective

Greek adámas, unconquerable — derived from a- (not) plus damnan (to subdue). As a color modifier, adamant implies a saturated-and-rock-hard quality where the hue maintains diamond-hard pigmentation. Sits at the bold-and-resilient end of the grid, parallel to indomitable and ironclad in usage.

Bordo
noun

Polish for Bordeaux — adopted into Polish color terminology as the name for deep wine purple, the dominant Polish-folk church-textile color of the Counter-Reformation period. Bordo color refers to a Polish-Catholic Lenten purple chasuble: a saturated, slightly cool deep violet with the matte finish of multi-bath fermentation-and-iron-mordant wool. Slightly warmer than Russian purpurnyy.

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.

#b538a5
Original
#3462a8
Protanopia
#6074a2
Deuteranopia
#bd436a
Tritanopia
#5a5a5a
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
5.15:1
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
4.07:1

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
##B538A5
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6554 0.2566 0.6289)
P3 has visible headroomOKLCH chroma 0.200

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.

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