Crimson & Teal & Indigo

Teal (dark, hue 180°, vivid blue-green) and Indigo (very dark, hue 275°, blue-violet) are the most deeply dark cool pair possible — both at near-minimum luminance, spanning from blue-green to blue-violet. The combination of two maximally dark cools against Crimson's passionate warm creates the most dramatically deep and most sumptuously dark of all trios — the palette of night-dark luxury.

The palette is the visual world of the Northern Irish linen and indigo trade in the 18th and 19th centuries — specifically the Belfast linen industry at its height (approximately 1750-1880), when Belfast was the most important linen-producing city in the world and the indigo-dyed linen was among the most valuable textile exports in the British Empire. The Belfast linen palette: the deep vivid crimson of the Belfast Red Hand of Ulster (the Red Hand — Lámh Dearg Uladh — the most ancient and most immediately recognizable symbol of Ulster and Northern Ireland, a right hand (sometimes left) in deep crimson-to-red — appearing in the coat of arms of Ulster, the flag of Northern Ireland, and countless Ulster cultural references); the dark vivid teal of the deep-dyed linen (Belfast linen dyed with woad or early indigo produced a specific dark teal-to-blue-green in its mid-stages of dyeing, before the full indigo saturation was reached — the intermediate teal stage was one of the most celebrated intermediate color effects in the Belfast linen trade); and the very deep indigo of the fully-dyed Belfast indigo linen — the most valuable export color.