shibui · palette study

A cool, dark ground with every accent at the edge of restraint.

shibui (渋い) names the Japanese aesthetic of subdued, unobtrusive beauty. It is the quality of something that deepens the longer you look without ever announcing itself. The ground is a cool blue-black, the six accents are desaturated and muted, and nothing in the palette claims priority over the text.

Ground

Swatches are rendered through the browser’s color management pipeline. On some displays the chips may appear as slightly different values than the hex codes shown — minor adjustment may be needed when applying these to terminals or other applications that bypass color management.

Sumi color0
#191a20
Ground background
#1f2228
Raised panel / tab
#272c35
Wash selection
#343846
Nezumi color8 / comment
#535a6b
Washi color7
#b0a89c
Paper foreground
#d2cbad
Washi, bright color15
#dad6c9

Accents

Beni · seal red
The calligraphy scroll's cinnabar stamp — quiet warmth, not alarm.
#b26461#c88e8a
Cha · tea-sage
The tatami weave — dry sage, neutral and grounding.
#939971#aeb393
Kin · gilt
The scroll's gold-leaf border, aged and quieted.
#b39b6a#c8b18b
Ai · indigo
The kimono's cool cloth — the hero hue of this palette.
#9ea7ba#b7bfce
Fuji · wisteria
Mixed from Beni and Ai, sitting between scroll and cloth.
#b194af#997a96
Mizu · water
Cha and Ai mixed — tatami green meets kimono blue.
#709994#8ab1ab

In place

~/scrolls # shibui cat shibui.theme # palette def accent(name: str) -> tuple[int, int, int]: match name: case "hero": return (0x9e, 0xa7, 0xba) case _: raise ValueError("no such accent")