Bluenze · Colour sample book

Dictionary · 237 of 348Palettes

Combination 237 from Wada's dictionary · contrasting hues, mixed light

Colour palette: Carmine Red, Madder Brown and Salvia Blue.

One of the 348 combinations Sanzō Wada set down in 1933, with roles assigned, contrast checked and advice for using it.

Haishoku Sōkan · 1933

The plate, as printedWada · 237

3 colours in equal parts, as in the book. It is the inspiration, not the interface. Click one to copy it.

Combination 237 · the plate, in four leaves

I · The colours, one by oneWada · 237

What each one is.

The hex codes come from the book's CMYK run through the FOGRA39 press profile. Under each colour we also list the hex other websites use, which comes from a direct formula and oversaturates.

  1. Carmine Red

    Carmín oscuro

    CMYK 25 · 95 · 80 · 16

    Elsewhere: #a10b2b

    Wada uses it in 12 combinations.

    Five palettes from this colour →

  2. Madder Brown

    Marrón rojizo oscuro

    CMYK 36 · 88 · 100 · 38

    Elsewhere: #651300

    Wada uses it in 7 combinations.

    Five palettes from this colour →

  3. Salvia Blue

    Azul cielo grisáceo

    CMYK 41 · 25 · 10 · 0

    Elsewhere: #96bfe6

    Wada uses it in 13 combinations.

    Five palettes from this colour →
Plate · MixesThree parts to one

The three colours, mixed two by two

  • 3 parts carmine red1 part madder brown
  • 3 parts madder brown1 part salvia blue
  • 3 parts salvia blue1 part carmine red
  • 3 parts carmine red1 part salvia blue
  • 3 parts madder brown1 part carmine red
  • 3 parts salvia blue1 part madder brown

This is where the in-betweens the plate doesn’t carry come from: borders, card backgrounds, disabled states. The mix is done in OKLab, which is closer to mixing paint than to averaging numbers. Click the result to copy it.

On screen · the split60 · 30 · 10

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.

  • 60% BackgroundWhere the eye rests: most of the screen. The plate's #7b2c13, darkened.
  • 30% SurfaceCards, bands, headers. This is where the book's colour lives. From the plate, as is (#7b2c13).
  • 10% AccentOnly what gets clicked. The plate's #a8262e, lightened.

The roles the plate doesn’t carry

Measured, before and after

  1. On the plate, the best pair of colours reads at 4.4:1: only good for large text.Falls short
  2. On screen, the text #eceef1 on the background #2f1d17 gives 13.8:1: AAA, reads with room to spare. APCA gives Lc 94: good for small text, the kind you read a paragraph of.Passes
  3. The accent #c03e40 stands 3.0:1 from the background (a button needs 3:1) and as a link reaches 4.6:1 (a word needs 4.5:1).Passes
  4. Under protanopia, your accent and your background drop to 2.3:1. The button stops standing out: give it a border, change the lightness, or don't rely on colour alone to mark it.Falls short
Out in the worldAdapted

This is the plate 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.

Adapted: the background rests, the surface keeps the plate’s colour and the accent earns the button.

How to use it

  1. ProportionDistribute, don't equalise: #2f1d17 on 60% of the screen, #7b2c13 on 30% (cards, bands, headers) and #c03e40 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.
  2. TextNo pair on the plate read as text (the best gave 4.4:1). That is why body text goes in #eceef1, a near-neutral ink tinted with the palette's hue: it is not in the book, and it is needed.
  3. The buttonThe accent #c03e40 stands 3.0:1 apart from the background: it works as a button, with text in #fff4f1.
  4. TemperatureWarm and cool together: let one lead and the other point. Here the background #7b2c13 leads, and the accent #c03e40 is the first thing the eye will look for.
  5. How manyThree colours is the comfortable measure: background, text and one accent. Don't add a fourth unless it earns its place by contrast or by hue.
  6. In the dictionaryIn 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 mixed-light ones: it already brings hierarchy. Keep it on screen: lightest at the back, darkest in front.
The kit · ramps and statesFor the design system

The kit

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.

Click any swatch to copy it.

The accent’s tints

The neutrals, tinted with the accent

Button states and alerts

The kit · night and code237

The same plate, by day

The same colour, by day.

The palette is born dark; this is its light version. The background is not pure white: it carries a little of its hue, just as the dark one was not black.

A button

Take it with you

/* Wada combination 237 — bluenze.com/paletas */
:root {
  --fondo: #2f1d17;
  --superficie: #7b2c13;
  --texto: #eceef1;
  --tinta: #eceef1;
  --texto-suave: #aeb1b5;
  --titular: #a3b3cf;
  --acento: #c03e40;
  --acento-texto: #fff4f1;
  --enlace: #e55f5c;
  --borde: #58423a;

  /* la lámina de Wada, tal cual */
  --lamina-1: #a8262e;
  --lamina-2: #7b2c13;
  --lamina-3: #a3b3cf;

  --acento-50: #f6f6f6;
  --acento-100: #ffe5e3;
  --acento-200: #fecbc6;
  --acento-300: #ffa7a0;
  --acento-400: #f7807a;
  --acento-500: #e35d5b;
  --acento-600: #c03e40;
  --acento-700: #9e2f32;
  --acento-800: #781f22;
  --acento-900: #541013;
  --neutro-50: #f8f6f6;
  --neutro-100: #eeeaea;
  --neutro-200: #dcd6d5;
  --neutro-300: #c5bcbb;
  --neutro-400: #aca19f;
  --neutro-500: #928685;
  --neutro-600: #796d6c;
  --neutro-700: #5f5554;
  --neutro-800: #463e3d;
  --neutro-900: #2f2928;

  --boton: #c03e40;
  --boton-encima: #d65150;
  --boton-pulsado: #e66864;
  --boton-apagado: #473432;
  --foco: #d41a33;

  --exito: #66bf63;
  --aviso: #d1b443;
  --error: #fd8b73;
  --info: #6eaefc;
}

@media (prefers-color-scheme: light) {
  :root {
    --fondo: #fff2f1;
    --superficie: #fde2df;
    --borde: #eacac7;
    --texto: #2f201f;
    --tinta: #2f201f;
    --texto-suave: #735e5c;
    --acento: #c03e40;
    --acento-texto: #fff4f3;
  }
}
Open the card →Post on LinkedIn →
Goethe’s readingWhat it conveys

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.

What it conveys, by where each colour landed

The palette crosses both sides of the circle, active and passive. It carries the most tension and most needs one of the two to lead.

  • Surface · orange

    Orange fills a surface with energy and never lets go. It works if the rest of the palette keeps quiet; otherwise it tires before the first screenful is over. § 775

  • Accent · red

    Red is the high point of the active side. In a small patch it does exactly what an accent is for: stopping the eye once. § 793

  • Heading · blue

    Blue recedes, and an accent is asked to do the opposite. As a link it only has to be distinguishable; as a primary button it needs contrast to do the work the colour will not. § 781

What is happening to this palette

  1. #a8262e and #7b2c13 are neighbours on the circle and only 8 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. § 899

How each pair readsZur Farbenlehre · 1810

How each pair reads on the circle

  • Adjacent #a8262e · #7b2c13

    Adjacent on the circle, with no colour between them to keep them apart. They are saved by proportion: one has to lead and the other to follow. § 828

  • Characteristic #a8262e · #a3b3cf

    Blue and red, with violet skipped. It approaches the effect of the violet their mixture would produce. § 821

  • Opposite #7b2c13 · #a3b3cf

    Opposite on the circle: together they complete what the eye asks for on its own. It is the only category Goethe approves without reservation. § 810

Criteria taken from Zur Farbenlehre (1810), in Eastlake's 1840 translation, which is public domain. The explanations are ours: from a book you take the substance, not the wording. The light values usually credited to Goethe for working out surface proportions are not in the Farbenlehre — they are Itten's, 1961, and that is how they are credited in the adaptation rules.

The card1200 × 630

The card, as it gets shared

Colour palette Carmine Red, Madder Brown and Salvia Blue, with its hex codes
This palette’s card: it’s what shows when you share it.
Shared colours8 from the book

They share a colour

Other dictionary combinations with these colours.

This combination also lives under a colour.

All the dictionary combinations →Go to the tool →
Chapter 3From plate to screen

Chapter 3

From plate to screen: six rules that are not ours

Wada worked with ink. You work with light.

Wada designed for ink, cloth and pigment. A screen emits light, is read for minutes at a time and has a law. These are the rules colour for interfaces is built with, and the ones we adapt each plate with; none of them is ours, so each one carries its owner.

  1. Johannes Itten · Hype4 Academy (opens in a new tab)

    Distribute 60 · 30 · 10

  2. Refactoring UI (opens in a new tab)

    The background rests

  3. Material 3 · colour roles (opens in a new tab)

    The book's colour lives on the surface

  4. GOV.UK Design System (opens in a new tab)

    Paragraphs don't go in colour

  5. WCAG 2.2 · 1.4.3 and 1.4.11 (opens in a new tab)

    The accent earns the button

  6. Evil Martians · OKLCH in CSS (opens in a new tab)

    Move the lightness, not the hue

Plate III · The six, drawnWith Wada combination 237
In the book · equal partsOn screen · 60 · 30 · 10
One colour dominates, another accompanies and the third only points. In the book they sit in equal parts because that is how you compare them; on screen, equalising them is noise. Itten measured it in 1961: complementaries balance in areas inverse to their strength.
text herebackground here
The background lives at one end of the lightness scale, very light or very dark, with little colour. Neither pure white nor pure black: tinted with the palette's hue, which is what separates a designed interface from an assembled one.
Surface · 30%
Cards, bands and headers are the 30%: that is where Wada's colour shows at full size without carrying a paragraph. Material separates a colour from its role, “surface” and “on-surface”, so the hue can change without touching the interface.
A whole paragraph in the book's colour tires you out by the third line.Accent on background · 3:1In the tinted ink it reads without a second thought.Text on background · 13.8:1
Long text goes in a near-black (or near-white) tinted with the palette's hue, at 7:1. The book's colours enter through headings, where size forgives. GOV.UK writes in #0b0c0c, not #000.
Book a slotAccent / background · 3:1Good for a button
The most saturated colour goes only on what gets clicked, and is held to what the law asks of a component: 3:1 against the background (WCAG 1.4.11). As a word, 4.5:1 (1.4.3): a button and a link are not the same thing, and Radix gives them two different steps of its scale.
Lab · the hue stays putHSL · the hue drifts 7°
Every adjustment is a change of lightness in a perceptual space (Lab, OKLCH): the hue stays put. In HSL, darkening a blue turns it violet and lightening it turns it lilac.

Colophon

Colour is where it starts, not the whole job

If it is for your brand, this is what we do: custom websites that start with colour and end in code.

And something Wada already warned about back then: the plate is not the application. His samples sit on equal surfaces only so they can be compared. On a website the background leads, the text reads and the accent points, and a colour loses strength the more surface it covers. That is why every palette comes with its roles and some advice, not four equal squares.

Combinations based on Sanzō Wada's system (Haishoku Sōkan, 1933-34; Seigensha selection, 2010). Colour values are checked against that edition; the Spanish names, each combination's character and the explanations are ours.

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