From Wada's dictionary, 1933
Wada combination 12
Its colours, with the book's names: Isabella Color · Green Blue. The values are the book's; the roles and advice are ours.
Adapted for screen
The same hue as the plate with the lightness moved to where an interface needs it: the background rests, the surface keeps the colour from the book and the accent earns the button. Each role says which colour it comes from and what was done to it. Click any to copy.
On a website
This is your colour with a whole screen to fill.
This paragraph is here so you can see real text on a real background, which is where half of the pretty palettes fall over. If it's hard to read, now you know. And this is a link.
A card
Secondary surfaces use the support colour. If it doesn't separate from the background, the hierarchy is gone.
Measured, before and after
On the plate, the best pair of colours reads at 1.0:1: does not read.
On screen, the text #182721 on the background #fdf4e4 gives 14.2:1: AAA, reads with room to spare. APCA gives Lc 96: good for small text, the kind you read a paragraph of.
The accent #179f7c stands 3.1:1 from the background (a button needs 3:1) and as a link reaches 4.7:1 (a word needs 4.5:1).
Under Protanopia, your accent and your background drop to 2.8:1. The button stops standing out: give it a border, change the lightness, or don't rely on colour alone to mark it.
How to use it
- Proportion
Distribute, don't equalise: #fdf4e4 on 60% of the screen, #c3a55c on 30% (cards, bands, headers) and #179f7c on 10%, only on buttons and links. A colour loses force the more surface it covers; what looks intense on the plate softens at full screen.
- Text
No pair on the plate read as text (the best gave 1.0:1). That is why body text goes in #182721, a near-neutral ink tinted with the palette's hue: it is not in the book, and it is needed.
- The button
The accent #179f7c stands 3.1:1 apart from the background: it works as a button, with text in #182721.
- Temperature
Warm and cool together: let one lead and the other point. Here the background #c3a55c leads, and the accent #179f7c is the first thing the eye will look for.
- How many
Two colours are a pair, not a brand: add a neutral (an off-white or a grey) to get background, text and accent without straining either.
- In the dictionary
In the dictionary it sits among the contrasting-hue sets: hues deliberately set against each other. The contrast is already there; don't force it with shadows or blacks. It is one of the pale ones: muted tones that get along; running text needs an ink from outside, near black.
Goethe's reading
What this combination conveys, and why.
Wada tells you which colours go together. Goethe, a century earlier, explains why a combination means something or means nothing, and what each colour does depending on how much of the screen it takes. His circle has six colours and three oppositions, and every verdict below carries the paragraph it comes from.
The whole palette sits on the active side of the circle: the colours that advance, warm and push outward.
- Surface · yellow
Yellow across a large surface is a gamble. It is the least forgiving colour: the slightest drift towards green turns gold into dirt, and on screen that drift is supplied by compression or a gradient.
- Accent and Heading · green
Green is the colour of rest, so as an accent it points at nothing: the eye accepts it and moves on. If this palette needs something to stop the eye, this is not it.
- Adjacent
Adjacent on the circle, with nothing between them. Ordinary and agreeable: it says little, and it does not offend.
#c3a55c and #2dbc94 are neighbours on the circle and only 0 points of lightness apart. This is the failure Goethe describes without naming it: well-chosen colours placed at the wrong value. They vibrate, and neither can be read on top of the other.
There are 0 points of lightness between the lightest and darkest colour. With no step in lightness there is no hierarchy: the palette leans entirely on hue, and hue alone does not order a screen.
The kit for building it
A brand needs four colours; an interface needs a good deal more. This is what you'd otherwise invent by hand once you take four hex codes into the editor.
- 50#e9faf3
- 100#d4f2e6
- 200#b0e2cf
- 300#85ccb3
- 400#52b494
- 500#179f7c
- 600#097f62
- 700#00634c
- 800#024937
- 900#013124
- 50#f5f7f6
- 100#e8ecea
- 200#d3d8d6
- 300#b8c0bd
- 400#9ca5a1
- 500#808b87
- 600#67726e
- 700#505955
- 800#3a413f
- 900#262b29
- Normal
- Hover
- Pressed
- Disabled
- Focus
- Success
- Warning
- Error
- Info
The same colour, at night.
The background isn't pure black: it carries a little of your hue. That's what separates a designed dark mode from one that looks like a fault.
A button/* Wada combination 12 — bluenze.com/paletas */
:root {
--fondo: #fdf4e4;
--superficie: #c3a55c;
--texto: #182721;
--tinta: #182721;
--texto-suave: #536860;
--titular: #027d60;
--acento: #179f7c;
--acento-texto: #182721;
--enlace: #027d60;
--borde: #dcd0bb;
/* la lámina de Wada, tal cual */
--lamina-1: #c3a55c;
--lamina-2: #2dbc94;
--acento-50: #e9faf3;
--acento-100: #d4f2e6;
--acento-200: #b0e2cf;
--acento-300: #85ccb3;
--acento-400: #52b494;
--acento-500: #179f7c;
--acento-600: #097f62;
--acento-700: #00634c;
--acento-800: #024937;
--acento-900: #013124;
--neutro-50: #f5f7f6;
--neutro-100: #e8ecea;
--neutro-200: #d3d8d6;
--neutro-300: #b8c0bd;
--neutro-400: #9ca5a1;
--neutro-500: #808b87;
--neutro-600: #67726e;
--neutro-700: #505955;
--neutro-800: #3a413f;
--neutro-900: #262b29;
--boton: #179f7c;
--boton-encima: #0d8b6c;
--boton-pulsado: #04785c;
--boton-apagado: #c6d7d0;
--foco: #0f9f7c;
--exito: #3d7a3c;
--aviso: #a08a3d;
--error: #ab5342;
--info: #1e70b6;
}
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
:root {
--fondo: #14251f;
--superficie: #1d322b;
--borde: #334c43;
--texto: #e6f0ec;
--tinta: #e6f0ec;
--texto-suave: #a7b3ae;
--acento: #28a985;
--acento-texto: #1b2622;
}
}