From Wada's dictionary, 1933
Wada combination 44
Its colours, with the book's names: Light Porcelain Green · Olympic 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 1.4:1: does not read.
On screen, the text #1f242f on the background #e7faee gives 14.3:1: AAA, reads with room to spare. APCA gives Lc 97: good for small text, the kind you read a paragraph of.
The accent #4f8fe6 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).
Under Protanopia, your accent and your background drop to 2.7:1. 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: #e7faee on 60% of the screen, #23c17c on 30% (cards, bands, headers) and #4f8fe6 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 1.4:1). That is why body text goes in #1f242f, a near-neutral ink tinted with the palette's hue: it is not in the book, and it is needed.
- The button
The accent #4f8fe6 stands 3.0:1 apart from the background: it works as a button, with text in #1f242f.
- 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 55. 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 · 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.
#23c17c and #4f8fe6 are neighbours on the circle and only 10 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 10 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#f3f6ff
- 100#e4ebff
- 200#c7d7ff
- 300#a1befb
- 400#77a4f0
- 500#4f8fe6
- 600#2471c2
- 700#06589e
- 800#054176
- 900#012b52
- 50#f6f6f8
- 100#eaebed
- 200#d6d7db
- 300#bcbec4
- 400#a0a3ab
- 500#868991
- 600#6d6f77
- 700#55575e
- 800#3e4045
- 900#282a2e
- 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 44 — bluenze.com/paletas */
:root {
--fondo: #e7faee;
--superficie: #23c17c;
--texto: #1f242f;
--tinta: #1f242f;
--texto-suave: #5d6373;
--titular: #1f71c4;
--acento: #4f8fe6;
--acento-texto: #1f242f;
--enlace: #1f71c4;
--borde: #bfd7c8;
/* la lámina de Wada, tal cual */
--lamina-1: #23c17c;
--lamina-2: #4f8fe6;
--acento-50: #f3f6ff;
--acento-100: #e4ebff;
--acento-200: #c7d7ff;
--acento-300: #a1befb;
--acento-400: #77a4f0;
--acento-500: #4f8fe6;
--acento-600: #2471c2;
--acento-700: #06589e;
--acento-800: #054176;
--acento-900: #012b52;
--neutro-50: #f6f6f8;
--neutro-100: #eaebed;
--neutro-200: #d6d7db;
--neutro-300: #bcbec4;
--neutro-400: #a0a3ab;
--neutro-500: #868991;
--neutro-600: #6d6f77;
--neutro-700: #55575e;
--neutro-800: #3e4045;
--neutro-900: #282a2e;
--boton: #4f8fe6;
--boton-encima: #367dd2;
--boton-pulsado: #286cb8;
--boton-apagado: #cfd4e3;
--foco: #0f90fc;
--exito: #317c33;
--aviso: #a18a2d;
--error: #b34e3b;
--info: #1770b7;
}
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
:root {
--fondo: #1c222e;
--superficie: #272e3e;
--borde: #3f4759;
--texto: #eaeef7;
--tinta: #eaeef7;
--texto-suave: #adb0bb;
--acento: #5997ef;
--acento-texto: #20242d;
}
}