Magenta Memoir

#b4559b

A magenta that is muted. It is mid — the hardest range to put text on, either colour struggles.

Hex

#b4559b

RGB

180, 85, 155

OKLCh

59.0% 0.149 338.5°

CIELAB (D50)

50.3, 45.8, -19.9

What is true of this colour, and of no other

  • No other named colour in the set is within ΔE00 2 of it — it stands alone.
  • It uses 58% of the chroma sRGB can show at this lightness and hue.
  • As text on white it measures APCA Lc 70.4; on black, Lc -31.2. The sign is the polarity, which the WCAG ratio discards.
  • Built into an eleven-step scale, 10 of the 10 adjacent pairs stay ΔE00 2 apart — see the ramp.
  • protanopia and deuteranopia and tritanopia shift it by ΔE00 22.6 and 21.3 and 61.1 — no red cone.

Text on this colour

White text

4.46:1 — large text only

Black text

4.71:1 — passes AA

Black text is the better of the two at4.71:1. That is enough for body text.

As text on white, it needs to change

#b3549a is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.

Try it against your own background

The same colour, with one cone missing

As you see it

#b4559b

protanopia

#66669b · ΔE00 22.6

deuteranopia

#7b7b99 · ΔE00 21.3

tritanopia

#8e8e00 · ΔE00 61.1

Run a whole palette through all three

The twelve nearest named colours

Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isSafflower Purple at ΔE00 2.117: between 2 and 5 — clearly two colours when compared, easily mistaken from memory. What the numbers mean.

  • Safflower PurpleΔE00 2.117 · #b44c97
  • Radiant OrchidΔE00 2.504 · #ad5e99
  • Brilliant CarmineΔE00 2.669 · #ad548f
  • Spruce Tree FlowerΔE00 2.815 · #b35e97
  • BodaciousΔE00 3.026 · #b2619d
  • Meadow MauveΔE00 3.395 · #ac5d91
  • Purple OrchidΔE00 3.595 · #ad4d8c
  • Plum DustΔE00 3.621 · #aa4c8f
  • Cyclamen RedΔE00 3.72 · #a7598d
  • Rose VioletΔE00 3.76 · #c44d97
  • Spring CrocusΔE00 3.807 · #b7629b
  • Royalty LoyaltyΔE00 4.406 · #ae58ab

12 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.