From Wada's dictionary, 1933
Wada combination 56
Its colours, with the book's names: Grayish Lavender - B · Violet. 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 4.6:1: AA, it reads.
On screen, the text #26222d on the background #faf2ff 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 #2619d1 stands 9.0:1 from the background (a button needs 3:1) and as a link reaches 9.0:1 (a word needs 4.5:1).
How to use it
- Proportion
Distribute, don't equalise: #faf2ff on 60% of the screen, #bfabcc on 30% (cards, bands, headers) and #2619d1 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
Body text goes in #26222d, a near-neutral ink tinted with the palette's hue, even though the plate had a pair that read: a saturated colour as text tires by the third line. The book's colour enters through the heading, in #2619d1, where size forgives.
- The button
The accent #2619d1 stands 9.0:1 apart from the background: it works as a button, with text in #f9f5fc.
- Temperature
All cool: orderly and serious. So it doesn't feel distant, leave plenty of air and use the accent generously on whatever you want touched.
- 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 tone-on-tone sets: colours from one family. Hierarchy comes from light, not hue, so order elements from lightest to darkest. It is one of the pale ones: muted tones that get along; running text needs an ink from outside, near black. Though this one is not: its mean chroma is 64. The label describes the group in the book, not a measurement of this combination — nearly half the pale group is not pale.
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 passive side: the colours that recede, cool and draw the eye inward.
- Surface · violet
Goethe puts it bluntly: a large surface of pure violet would be intolerable. It holds up here because the screen adaptation has taken the chroma down. On the plate, at full saturation, it would not.
- Accent and Heading · violet
The violet that would be intolerable as a background works in a border or a button. Same colour, different dose: this is a rule about surface, not about hue.
- Same sector
Both fall in the same sector of the circle. There is no hue contrast, so whatever separates them will have to be lightness.
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#f6f6f6
- 100#ebebeb
- 200#e1cfff
- 300#ccb1fe
- 400#b391fa
- 500#966efe
- 600#734dfd
- 700#5537d7
- 800#2619d1
- 900#261578
- 50#f7f6f8
- 100#ebeaed
- 200#d8d6db
- 300#bfbdc3
- 400#a5a2a9
- 500#8b8790
- 600#716e76
- 700#59565d
- 800#413f44
- 900#2b292d
- 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 56 — bluenze.com/paletas */
:root {
--fondo: #faf2ff;
--superficie: #bfabcc;
--texto: #26222d;
--tinta: #26222d;
--texto-suave: #676170;
--titular: #2619d1;
--acento: #2619d1;
--acento-texto: #f9f5fc;
--enlace: #2619d1;
--borde: #d8cedf;
/* la lámina de Wada, tal cual */
--lamina-1: #bfabcc;
--lamina-2: #2619d1;
--acento-50: #f6f6f6;
--acento-100: #ebebeb;
--acento-200: #e1cfff;
--acento-300: #ccb1fe;
--acento-400: #b391fa;
--acento-500: #966efe;
--acento-600: #734dfd;
--acento-700: #5537d7;
--acento-800: #2619d1;
--acento-900: #261578;
--neutro-50: #f7f6f8;
--neutro-100: #ebeaed;
--neutro-200: #d8d6db;
--neutro-300: #bfbdc3;
--neutro-400: #a5a2a9;
--neutro-500: #8b8790;
--neutro-600: #716e76;
--neutro-700: #59565d;
--neutro-800: #413f44;
--neutro-900: #2b292d;
--boton: #2619d1;
--boton-encima: #030ab1;
--boton-pulsado: #070784;
--boton-apagado: #897e9b;
--foco: #3822ca;
--exito: #0b7f21;
--aviso: #a28a0d;
--error: #c93625;
--info: #0470ba;
}
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
:root {
--fondo: #24202c;
--superficie: #312c3b;
--borde: #4a4456;
--texto: #f0ecf6;
--tinta: #f0ecf6;
--texto-suave: #b3afb9;
--acento: #a580fa;
--acento-texto: #26222d;
}
}