RAL Design System plus — hue 090

Yellow is the only colour family in which lightness and saturation are tied to one another. A yellow cannot be dark and still stay yellow: bring the lightness down and the eye reads not a dark yellow but olive, khaki or brown. You see that reflected in the range. The darkest shade, 090 30 10 (Limonite brown), has an LRV of 9.2 and is called yellow by nobody; the most saturated, 090 80 90 (Contrasting yellow), sits high in lightness instead. The intense yellow of this hue lives together in the upper corner of the lightness/saturation field, and that is not a choice by its compilers but a property of the colour.

In practice this means that within 090 you do not have the same freedom of movement as in a blue or red hue. If you want to keep yellow, you stay above L\* 70. Drop below that and you are in reality choosing another colour family — usable, but something other than what you meant.

At low light levels yellow becomes unrecognisable later than most colours and has a high light reflectance value of its own. Those two properties together make it the colour of warning: RAL 1023 traffic yellow and RAL 1003 signal yellow are the best-known examples. The strongly saturated shades of this hue lie in that same area, and that has a consequence for decorative use. In a public or industrial setting a yellow with a saturation above about 70 is almost always read as a sign, even when it is meant as a colour.

All 46 colours in this group

RAL 090 30 10 — Limonite brownView RAL 090 30 10 →RAL 090 30 20 — Bark greenView RAL 090 30 20 →RAL 090 40 10 — Boulder brownView RAL 090 40 10 →RAL 090 40 20 — Plum greenView RAL 090 40 20 →RAL 090 40 30 — Vine leaf greenView RAL 090 40 30 →RAL 090 50 10 — Graphite grey greenView RAL 090 50 10 →RAL 090 50 20 — Pesto greenView RAL 090 50 20 →RAL 090 50 30 — Giant cactus greenView RAL 090 50 30 →RAL 090 50 40 — Aubergine greenView RAL 090 50 40 →RAL 090 60 10 — Oyster greyView RAL 090 60 10 →RAL 090 60 20 — Manzanilla oliveView RAL 090 60 20 →RAL 090 60 30 — Camouflage oliveView RAL 090 60 30 →RAL 090 60 40 — Laurel greenView RAL 090 60 40 →RAL 090 60 50 — Faint greenView RAL 090 60 50 →RAL 090 60 60 — Titanite yellowView RAL 090 60 60 →RAL 090 70 10 — Dusty yellowView RAL 090 70 10 →RAL 090 70 20 — Barbados beigeView RAL 090 70 20 →RAL 090 70 30 — Rhubarb leaf greenView RAL 090 70 30 →RAL 090 70 40 — Hedgehog cactus yellow greenView RAL 090 70 40 →RAL 090 70 50 — Gooseberry yellowView RAL 090 70 50 →RAL 090 70 60 — Bud greenView RAL 090 70 60 →RAL 090 70 70 — Catkin yellowView RAL 090 70 70 →RAL 090 70 80 — Prehnite yellowView RAL 090 70 80 →RAL 090 80 10 — Light beigeView RAL 090 80 10 →RAL 090 80 20 — Champagne beigeView RAL 090 80 20 →RAL 090 80 30 — Lemon sorbet yellowView RAL 090 80 30 →RAL 090 80 40 — Blossom yellowView RAL 090 80 40 →RAL 090 80 50 — Tasman honey yellowView RAL 090 80 50 →RAL 090 80 60 — New yellowView RAL 090 80 60 →RAL 090 80 70 — Fashion yellowView RAL 090 80 70 →RAL 090 80 80 — Poster yellowView RAL 090 80 80 →RAL 090 80 90 — Contrasting yellowView RAL 090 80 90 →RAL 090 85 05 — Pepper whiteView RAL 090 85 05 →RAL 090 85 10 — Paella natural whiteView RAL 090 85 10 →RAL 090 85 20 — Cider yellowView RAL 090 85 20 →RAL 090 85 30 — Palm sugar yellowView RAL 090 85 30 →RAL 090 85 40 — March yellowView RAL 090 85 40 →RAL 090 85 50 — Oriole yellowView RAL 090 85 50 →RAL 090 90 05 — Marzipan whiteView RAL 090 90 05 →RAL 090 90 10 — Primrose whiteView RAL 090 90 10 →RAL 090 90 20 — Cream yellowView RAL 090 90 20 →RAL 090 90 30 — Wax yellowView RAL 090 90 30 →RAL 090 90 40 — Lemon creamView RAL 090 90 40 →RAL 090 90 50 — Tiger yellowView RAL 090 90 50 →RAL 090 90 60 — Sunrose yellowView RAL 090 90 60 →RAL 090 93 05 — Cream whiteView RAL 090 93 05 →

More about hue 090

On the warm–cool scale 090 lies in the warm half, but the peak of colour warmth is at around a hue angle of 50 degrees, in the oranges; with an average angle of 92 degrees this hue is noticeably past it. So yellow is warm without the glow of orange — a brightness rather than a warmth.

What makes a yellow surface lively is almost entirely the saturation. 090 80 20 (Champagne beige) and 090 80 80 (Poster yellow) have the same lightness and the same hue; the first is a calm interior colour, the second claims the space. So anyone wanting to adjust the effect of a surface changes the last block and not the hue.

Yellow pigments cover poorly. They have little scattering power, so the substrate shows through for longer and an extra coat is needed more often than with a neutral colour. Differences in film thickness are accordingly visible in yellow straight away as a difference in colour, not only as a difference in gloss. In spray work in a saturated shade from this hue, an even build-up matters more than in any other colour family.

Light, weakly saturated yellows also yellow along with the binder. In a yellow that shift is harder to see than in a white, but when touching up years later it comes out after all: the new surface stands colder than the old. So assess and approve on the A4 colour samples as the colour standard, and when touching up, measure the existing state instead of comparing it with a sample.

Technical data

Hue: 090 · Shades: 46 · Lightness: L\* 30–93 · Saturation: C\* 05–90 · Lab values: per shade on the colour page · LRV: 9.2 to 83.1 · 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 085, RAL Design 095

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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