RAL Design System plus

Where RAL Classic is a collection of separate colours that grew historically, the RAL Design System plus is a grid. Its 1,825 colours are distributed systematically through the CIELab colour space — the space derived from the way the human eye perceives colour differences. The system has existed since 1993.

That difference is not academic. In a grid you can calculate colours: if you need a series, a gradient or a harmony, you derive it from the codes instead of assembling it by eye.

How to read the code

Every code consists of three numbers. RAL 210 40 30 has hue 210, lightness 40 and chroma 30.

• Hue — the position on the colour circle, from 000 to 360 in steps of ten. Hue 000 is the grey axis: every neutral tone from almost black to almost white.
• Lightness — how light or dark the colour is, from nearly black to nearly white.
• Chroma — the saturation: how far the colour sits from grey.

Because all three values are measurable, a RAL Design code leaves no room for interpretation. Two suppliers using the same code arrive at the same colour — which is the whole reason to specify a system rather than a colour name.

When Design, and when Classic

RAL Classic is the obvious choice when you are matching what already exists: the 216 colours are available everywhere, from powder coating to signage, and the safety colours are laid down in it.

RAL Design is the choice when you determine a colour yourself and want to hit it exactly — for a corporate identity, a façade, or a product line in which colours have to sit well together. The finer grid allows nuances that Classic does not have.

The forms the colours come in

The collection comes as a fan deck (RAL D2), as a colour atlas (RAL D4), as loose colour samples in A4 and A6 format, as colour chips (RAL D3) and as plastic plates (RAL P2). Loose samples are ordered per colour.