juniro - the twelve colors 🍂

25w33.4

a 12 month color palette inspired by small seasons

I was looking for a palette to colorize the months of the year. After playing around with various generators, I ended up with the following snippet.

const palette = [ ...Array( 12 ).keys() ].map( i => {
    const rgb = okhsl_to_srgb( ( 360 - ( i * 30 + 120 ) % 360 ) / 360, 0.8, 0.7 );
    return rgb_to_hex( ...rgb );
});

It rotates through hue with constant saturation and lightness in okhsl color space (shoutout Björn Ottosson). I aligned the hue temperature to seasonal changes, and tuned saturation and lightness to pastelle tones that were pleasant to my eyes, especially on dark themes. And thus "jūni no iro" was born, "the twelve colors".

Here are the colors for css usage.

:root {
  --jan-clear-ice:          #3dbed2;  /* shōkan 小寒: deep winter, frozen rivers */
  --feb-budding-shore:      #40c3ae;  /* usui 雨水: snow melts, water flows */
  --mar-sprouting-fields:   #5ac577;  /* keichitsu 啓蟄: first shoots emerge */
  --apr-young-rice:         #a0b93b;  /* seimei 清明: fields turn fresh green */
  --may-early-grain:        #cca737;  /* shōman 小満: barley ripens */
  --jun-summer-sol:         #ea9549;  /* geshi 夏至: sun at its zenith */
  --jul-heat-haze:          #f28a7a;  /* shōsho 小暑: warm winds, cicadas sing */
  --aug-evening-festival:   #f481a8;  /* obon お盆: lanterns and blossoms */
  --sep-purple-dew:         #e382dc;  /* hakuro 白露: cool mornings, autumn flowers */
  --oct-chrysanthemum-moon: #b996f5;  /* kangetsu 観月: harvest moon nights */
  --nov-early-frost:        #8fa8f3;  /* sōkō 霜降: frost on the fields */
  --dec-winter-sky:         #5db5ef;  /* tōji 冬至: clear, cold solstice days */
}

And an example use case of my weekly-cli terminal calendar app.

weekly-cli

The palette has been contributed to the public domain. Feel free to use to your liking. The repository also includes some MIT licensed reference implementations.
https://github.com/gurki/juniro

last modified: 2025-08-15T13:02:24Z