RAL Design System plus — grey axis (000)

Pure grey exists as a measured value, but barely as a perception. As soon as you place a tone from this hue next to a coloured surface it takes on colour: beside warm timber it looks cool, beside a blue façade warm, beside brickwork greenish. That is simultaneous contrast — the eye always judges grey in relation to its surroundings and has no absolute reference.

The practical consequence is counter-intuitive. If you want a genuinely neutral impression you often end up not with 000 but with a shade carrying a minimal colour direction that compensates for the surrounding contrast. Choosing grey is therefore always choosing grey in relation to something, never on its own.

The grey axis is the axis around which the whole system is built. All saturation is measured against it: the further a colour lies from the axis, the more intense it is. A colour with saturation 05 lies right beside this hue and is barely distinguishable from grey; a colour with saturation 80 lies at the outer edge.

All 16 colours in this group

RAL 000 15 00 — Ink blackView RAL 000 15 00 →RAL 000 20 00 — Slate blackView RAL 000 20 00 →RAL 000 25 00 — Onyx blackView RAL 000 25 00 →RAL 000 30 00 — Medium blackView RAL 000 30 00 →RAL 000 35 00 — Briquette greyView RAL 000 35 00 →RAL 000 40 00 — Dark greyView RAL 000 40 00 →RAL 000 45 00 — Architecture greyView RAL 000 45 00 →RAL 000 50 00 — Steel greyView RAL 000 50 00 →RAL 000 55 00 — Medium greyView RAL 000 55 00 →RAL 000 60 00 — Ash greyView RAL 000 60 00 →RAL 000 65 00 — Mortar greyView RAL 000 65 00 →RAL 000 70 00 — Light greyView RAL 000 70 00 →RAL 000 75 00 — Marble greyView RAL 000 75 00 →RAL 000 80 00 — Foggy greyView RAL 000 80 00 →RAL 000 85 00 — Shadow whiteView RAL 000 85 00 →RAL 000 90 00 — Winter whiteView RAL 000 90 00 →

More about grey axis (000)

In use these are the colours for large surfaces, ceilings, backgrounds and everything where colour should support rather than lead. Lightness runs from L\* 15 to L\* 90 in steps of five — a finer division than in the chromatic hues, where the steps are larger. That is logical, because here lightness is the only variable.

Of all the colour attributes, lightness most strongly determines how heavy a surface feels: dark weighs, light recedes. In this hue that works undiluted, because no hue or saturation comes between. If you want to steer the perceived weight of a room, this is the purest control the system offers.

The same applies to contrast. Where accessibility requirements prescribe a minimum difference in light reflectance value between surfaces with a safety function — door frames, stair treads, guidance lines — this hue is the simplest way to achieve that difference cleanly, without the choice of colour clouding the calculation.

Write the three leading zeros out in full. RAL Design 000 90 00 is a white from this system and has nothing to do with the RAL Classic 9000 range. These are two entirely separate systems with their own numbers and their own colours; a mix-up in a specification delivers a different colour from the one intended.

Never judge grey in isolation. Always place the candidate next to the material it will meet, under daylight or standardised light, and at a larger size than a fan deck sample. For approval, use the A4 colour samples as the colour standard.

Technical data

Hue: 000 · Shades: 16 · Lightness: L\* 15–90 · Saturation: C\* 00 · Lab values: per shade on the colour page · LRV: 5.3 to 76.5 · Included in: RAL D4 A4 colour samples (colour standard), RAL D2 fan deck, RAL D3 colour book, RAL D4 atlas, RAL D6 and D8 boxes

Neighbouring hues

RAL Design 010, RAL Design 360

Loose colour samples from this group

Click a colour for the available formats, or see the full product range in the shop.

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