The Dictionary of
Color Combinations

Tools / Palette Finder

Find a Wada palette.

Start with a color you already have. We'll find the closest matches across all 378 historical combinations from Sanzo Wada's 1933 archive.

Results update as you type. Sorted by closest color distance in the Wada archive.

Enter a color above to find matching palettes.

How it works

The matching

We compare your input color against every individual swatch in the full 378-palette archive using Euclidean distance in RGB space. Each palette is scored by its closest color match, then sorted — palettes with a color very close to yours appear first.

Why historical palettes

Sanzo Wada's 1933 dictionary distilled centuries of Japanese textile and lacquerwork tradition into a systematic catalog. These aren't computer-generated harmonies — they're combinations that survived because they work. Anchoring a modern design in one of them is the fastest path to a palette with historical coherence.