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A Dictionary of Colour Combinations

Sanzo Palette Studio

Explore 348 combinations drawn from 159 named colours, with fact-first descriptions, documented Japanese examples, contextual notes, and a perceptual finder that ranks palettes against one or two selected colours.

Try descriptive phrases such as light green, neon green, pastel pink, navy blue, warm grey, or dusty rose.

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Western design filters Explore a Western-oriented creative vocabulary for mood, season, occasion, feeling, and expression

These creative filters retain the studio’s Western-oriented vocabulary. Palette detail windows now present separately named Western, Chinese, Japanese, South Asian, Islamic visual, and material readings without treating any one section as universal.

From the dictionary

Three combinations to start with

Sanzo Wada’s numbered colour combinations are available here to search, compare, and match by perceptual colour difference. These examples show a pair, a trio, and a set of four from the 348 combinations.

Combination 1

2 colours
  • English Red #D96629
  • Cerulian Blue #0093A5

Combination 169

3 colours
  • Corinthian Pink #F8B6BA
  • Pale Lemon Yellow #FFEFAE
  • Warm Gray #A1A39A

Combination 241

4 colours
  • Red Orange #DD4027
  • Pale Lemon Yellow #FFEFAE
  • Isabella Color #C5A56E
  • Dark Medici Blue #547076

The RGB and hex values are screen approximations of printed colours, not print proofs. The studio draws its colour data from the open Sanzo Wada dataset; cultural examples in palette details are independent comparisons, not uses assigned by Wada. Browse all 348 combinations.

All combinations

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Colour data from A Dictionary of Colour Combinations by Sanzo Wada. Dataset prepared by Dain M. Blodorn Kim and Matt DesLauriers.

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Project notes

About Sanzo Palette Studio

This application is a focused interface for studying, comparing, and exporting the 348 combinations in the open-source dictionary-of-colour-combinations dataset.

The RGB and hex values are screen approximations derived from printed CMYK references. They should not be treated as authoritative print proofs.

Each source colour includes an extended descriptive profile generated from hue, HSL lightness, chroma, temperature, and familiar naming language. Search terms such as light green, neon green, pastel pink, navy blue, warm grey, and dusty rose are matched against that metadata. In a combination detail window, select one large swatch to rank other palettes by perceptual CIEDE2000 similarity, then optionally select a second swatch to find combinations that match both colours using different candidate swatches. Every palette description begins with the recorded colour names and measurable relationships. It then gives a concise comparison with a documented Japanese object or colour practice whose catalogued materials or colour terms provide a relevant comparison. These examples are independent comparisons, not claims that Wada copied the object or assigned that application to the numbered plate. Compact notes below continue to explore possible feelings, moods, seasons, events, holidays, places, design uses, and separately scoped regional or material perspectives.

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