From Wada's dictionary, 1933
Wada combination 119
Its colours, with the book's names: Light Glaucous Blue · Dark Tyrian 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 10.1:1: AAA, reads with room to spare.
On screen, the text #21232a on the background #e1faf5 gives 14.3:1: AAA, reads with room to spare. APCA gives Lc 96: good for small text, the kind you read a paragraph of.
The accent #0d2b52 stands 12.9:1 from the background (a button needs 3:1) and as a link reaches 12.9:1 (a word needs 4.5:1).
How to use it
- Proportion
Distribute, don't equalise: #e1faf5 on 60% of the screen, #a6e6db on 30% (cards, bands, headers) and #0d2b52 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 #21232a, 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 #0d2b52, where size forgives.
- The button
The accent #0d2b52 stands 12.9:1 apart from the background: it works as a button, with text in #eef9f7.
- 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 mixed-light ones: it already brings hierarchy. Keep it on screen: lightest at the back, darkest in front.
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 · 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.
- Accent and 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.
- Adjacent
Adjacent on the circle. This is the one pair Goethe dismisses outright, and that judgement does not hold today — teal is well liked. What does hold is the measurable half: two neighbours with no difference in lightness produce no contrast.
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#f4f6ff
- 100#e7ebf9
- 200#d0d7ee
- 300#b3bedf
- 400#94a2cc
- 500#7688b8
- 600#5c6f9c
- 700#46577d
- 800#323f5e
- 900#0d2b52
- 50#f6f6f8
- 100#eaebed
- 200#d6d7db
- 300#bcbec4
- 400#a1a3ab
- 500#868991
- 600#6d6f77
- 700#55575e
- 800#3e4045
- 900#292a2e
- 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 119 — bluenze.com/paletas */
:root {
--fondo: #e1faf5;
--superficie: #a6e6db;
--texto: #21232a;
--tinta: #21232a;
--texto-suave: #60636c;
--titular: #0d2b52;
--acento: #0d2b52;
--acento-texto: #eef9f7;
--enlace: #0d2b52;
--borde: #b9d8d2;
/* la lámina de Wada, tal cual */
--lamina-1: #a6e6db;
--lamina-2: #0d2b52;
--acento-50: #f4f6ff;
--acento-100: #e7ebf9;
--acento-200: #d0d7ee;
--acento-300: #b3bedf;
--acento-400: #94a2cc;
--acento-500: #7688b8;
--acento-600: #5c6f9c;
--acento-700: #46577d;
--acento-800: #323f5e;
--acento-900: #0d2b52;
--neutro-50: #f6f6f8;
--neutro-100: #eaebed;
--neutro-200: #d6d7db;
--neutro-300: #bcbec4;
--neutro-400: #a1a3ab;
--neutro-500: #868991;
--neutro-600: #6d6f77;
--neutro-700: #55575e;
--neutro-800: #3e4045;
--neutro-900: #292a2e;
--boton: #0d2b52;
--boton-encima: #011d3d;
--boton-pulsado: #00132e;
--boton-apagado: #65676e;
--foco: #034787;
--exito: #457942;
--aviso: #9e8b48;
--error: #a45747;
--info: #3670ac;
}
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
:root {
--fondo: #1f212a;
--superficie: #2b2e38;
--borde: #434653;
--texto: #eceef3;
--tinta: #eceef3;
--texto-suave: #afb0b6;
--acento: #8395c5;
--acento-texto: #222329;
}
}