Bluenze · Colour sample book

Dictionary · 255 of 348Palettes

Combination 255 from Wada's dictionary · contrasting hues, mixed light

Colour palette: Raw Sienna, Pyrite Yellow, Calamine Blue and Black.

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 · 255

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

Combination 255 · the plate, in four leaves

I · The colours, one by oneWada · 255

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. Raw Sienna

    Siena tostado

    CMYK 18 · 58 · 100 · 12

    Elsewhere: #b85e00

    Wada uses it in 19 combinations.

    Five palettes from this colour →

  2. Pyrite Yellow

    Amarillo pirita

    CMYK 23 · 25 · 80 · 0

    Elsewhere: #c4bf33

    Wada uses it in 4 combinations.

    Five palettes from this colour →

  3. Calamine Blue

    Azul calamina

    CMYK 50 · 0 · 20 · 0

    Elsewhere: #80ffcc

    Wada uses it in 10 combinations.

    Five palettes from this colour →

  4. Black

    Negro

    CMYK 20 · 10 · 15 · 100

    Elsewhere: #000000

    Wada uses it in 23 combinations.

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

The four colours, mixed two by two

  • 3 parts raw sienna1 part pyrite yellow
  • 3 parts pyrite yellow1 part calamine blue
  • 3 parts calamine blue1 part black
  • 3 parts black1 part raw sienna
  • 3 parts raw sienna1 part calamine blue
  • 3 parts pyrite yellow1 part black
  • 3 parts calamine blue1 part raw sienna
  • 3 parts black1 part pyrite yellow
  • 3 parts raw sienna1 part black
  • 3 parts pyrite yellow1 part raw sienna
  • 3 parts calamine blue1 part pyrite yellow
  • 3 parts black1 part calamine blue

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 #87cdd3, lightened.
  • 30% SurfaceCards, bands, headers. This is where the book's colour lives. From the plate, as is (#87cdd3).
  • 10% AccentOnly what gets clicked. The plate's #c07111, darkened.

The roles the plate doesn’t carry

Measured, before and after

  1. On the plate, the best pair of colours reads at 10.0:1: AAA, reads with room to spare.Passes
  2. On screen, the text #232423 on the background #e0fafc gives 14.2:1: AAA, reads with room to spare. APCA gives Lc 97: good for small text, the kind you read a paragraph of.Passes
  3. The accent #a25b00 stands 4.7:1 from the background (a button needs 3:1) and as a link reaches 4.5:1 (a word needs 4.5:1).Passes
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: #e0fafc on 60% of the screen, #87cdd3 on 30% (cards, bands, headers) and #a25b00 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. TextBody text goes in #232423, 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 #141715, where size forgives.
  3. The buttonThe accent #a25b00 stands 4.7:1 apart from the background: it works as a button, with text in #edf9fa.
  4. TemperatureWarm and cool together: let one lead and the other point. Here the background #87cdd3 leads, and the accent #a25b00 is the first thing the eye will look for.
  5. How manyFour colours demand discipline: #87cdd3 and #141715 are the base, the other two are detail. If in doubt, drop the support colour before the accent.
  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 code255

The same plate, at night

The same colour, at night.

The background isn’t pure black: it carries a little of the accent’s hue. That’s what separates a designed dark mode from one that looks like a fault.

A button

Take it with you

/* Wada combination 255 — bluenze.com/paletas */
:root {
  --fondo: #e0fafc;
  --superficie: #87cdd3;
  --texto: #232423;
  --tinta: #232423;
  --texto-suave: #636363;
  --titular: #141715;
  --acento: #a25b00;
  --acento-texto: #edf9fa;
  --enlace: #a55f05;
  --borde: #b7d8da;
  --apoyo-1: #d1b64a;

  /* la lámina de Wada, tal cual */
  --lamina-1: #c07111;
  --lamina-2: #d1b64a;
  --lamina-3: #87cdd3;
  --lamina-4: #141715;

  --acento-50: #fff5ec;
  --acento-100: #ffe7d4;
  --acento-200: #fccea8;
  --acento-300: #eeb27c;
  --acento-400: #db934e;
  --acento-500: #c37725;
  --acento-600: #a25b00;
  --acento-700: #834902;
  --acento-800: #613500;
  --acento-900: #402301;
  --neutro-50: #f8f6f5;
  --neutro-100: #edeae8;
  --neutro-200: #dbd6d3;
  --neutro-300: #c3bdb9;
  --neutro-400: #a9a29c;
  --neutro-500: #908781;
  --neutro-600: #766e68;
  --neutro-700: #5d5651;
  --neutro-800: #443f3b;
  --neutro-900: #2d2926;

  --boton: #a25b00;
  --boton-encima: #894c01;
  --boton-pulsado: #713f03;
  --boton-apagado: #beada0;
  --foco: #a25b02;

  --exito: #1c7e27;
  --aviso: #a28a13;
  --error: #bc4532;
  --info: #1170b9;
}

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
  :root {
    --fondo: #2a1f16;
    --superficie: #392b20;
    --borde: #544436;
    --texto: #f6ece5;
    --tinta: #f6ece5;
    --texto-suave: #b9afa7;
    --acento: #d38432;
    --acento-texto: #2c221a;
  }
}
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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 whole palette sits on the active side of the circle: the colours that advance, warm and push outward.

  • Surface · green

    Green is where the eye rests. Goethe says whoever looks at it neither wishes nor is able to imagine anything beyond it, which is why it was the colour for rooms you live in. In an interface that is precisely a background. § 802

  • Accent · orange

    Orange in a small patch is the accent that needs no explaining: it advances, it is seen, and it does not need size to do it. § 775

What is happening to this palette

  1. #d1b64a and #87cdd3 are neighbours on the circle and only 4 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 #c07111 · #d1b64a

    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 #c07111 · #87cdd3

    Characteristic by geometry — there is a colour skipped between the two. But Goethe judges only four pairs in this group, and this is not one of them. § 823

    This verdict is ours. Goethe judges four of the six pairs in this group and says so himself, or one of the two colours sits right between two sectors of the circle.

  • With a neutral #c07111 · #141715

    Next to black, a colour from the active side gains energy. § 831

  • Adjacent #d1b64a · #87cdd3

    Adjacent on the circle, with nothing between them. Ordinary and agreeable: it says little, and it does not offend. § 829

    This verdict is ours. Goethe judges four of the six pairs in this group and says so himself, or one of the two colours sits right between two sectors of the circle.

  • With a neutral #d1b64a · #141715

    Next to black, a colour from the active side gains energy. § 831

  • With a neutral #87cdd3 · #141715

    A neutral with a colour that has no side on the circle. Goethe has nothing to say here. § 831

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 Raw Sienna, Pyrite Yellow, Calamine Blue and Black, 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 255
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.
background heretext 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 · 4.7:1In the tinted ink it reads without a second thought.Text on background · 14.2:1
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 · 4.7:1Good 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 8°
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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