Collection · 8 palettes

Pastel Color Palettes

The soft register of Japanese color — sakura, haze, and spring mist.

Japanese pastel is not the saccharine variety of greeting-card pink — it is the muted, often grey-shifted softness of seasonal pigments: sakura (cherry blossom), kasumi (spring haze), mizu (water blue), usumomo (pale peach). The light comes from the white paper showing through diluted mineral pigments, not from saturation. These palettes work for beauty, wellness, lifestyle brands, and any digital interface that needs to breathe.

Heian era

Cherry Blossom & Young Bamboo— 桜と若竹

The softest pink of cherry blossoms set beside young bamboo green — spring, captured.

Heian era

Pink Dianthus & Water— 撫子と水色

The soft pink of wild dianthus beside the translucent blue of mountain water.

Heian era

Wisteria & Indigo— 藤と藍

The soft lavender of wisteria blossoms against deep indigo.

Heian era

Royal Purple & Silver— 紫と銀

Imperial purple set against lunar silver — Heian courtly luxury at its quietest.

Edo era

Indigo Blue & Silver— 縹と銀

Mid-grade indigo with the quiet sheen of silver — an understated Edo merchant robe.

Kamakura era

Ultramarine & Chalk White— 群青と胡粉

The deep ultramarine of Buddhist mineral pigment against temple chalk white.

Heian era

Lapis & Chalk— 瑠璃と胡粉

Lapis lazuli blue against oyster-shell white — the color of Buddhist scripture.

Heian era

Ao & White— 青と白

The classical Japanese 'ao' — an ambiguous blue-green — against pure white.

From the archive

Support the archive The full catalog, on your disk, as a thank-you.

All 378 palettes (348 Wada + 30 editorial) in five formats
Figma design tokens (W3C-spec JSON, drag into any file)
Tailwind v4 + v3 configs — drop into any project
CSS custom properties — every plate, one stylesheet
378 museum SVG plates — print-ready at any size
Full JSON — colors, names, eras, moods, dominant hues

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