Striking Akane
Striking Akane (#E36BA7) is a true magenta with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (330°, 68%, 65%) 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.
Etymology
The progressive participle of strike, to hit. Used as a color word since the seventeenth century for hues that command immediate attention. Striking red, striking blue: the implication is saturation combined with visual impact. Sits at the bright-bucket center alongside bold and punchy.
Rubia cordifolia, the Asian madder root that gave its name in Japanese to a saturated dawn-red color and to one of the oldest dyes in continuous use in Japan. Akane has dyed temple textiles, kimono linings, and the akabō porter caps of pre-modern Tokyo for over a thousand years. The color refers to a freshly akane-dyed silk: a saturated, slightly orange-shifted red with the plant-dye warmth of natural pigment.
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.