RAL Design System plus — hue 130

A narrow range in RAL Design is rarely a choice and almost always a limit of the technique. In this part of colour space, strongly saturated colours are harder to make opaque with the available pigments than a few steps earlier in the circle; the system shows what is reproducible, not what is theoretically conceivable. The most saturated shade is 130 60 60 (Primal green), and above that it stops.

In practice that is less limiting than it sounds. A saturated green is rarely usable on large surfaces, because the eye keeps correcting an intense green. What is missing here is precisely the area you would not choose for a wall or a façade anyway.

What this hue does have in abundance is weak saturation across the whole lightness range. 130 30 10 (Arame seaweed green), 130 50 10 (Dubuffet green) and 130 60 10 (Matte sage green) sit one above the other at the same saturation and together form a series running from almost black to mid-light without ever becoming outspoken. That is a rarity: one hue that can carry a fully layered colour scheme without the colour ever demanding attention.

All 35 colours in this group

RAL 130 30 10 — Arame seaweed greenView RAL 130 30 10 →RAL 130 30 20 — Kelp greenView RAL 130 30 20 →RAL 130 40 10 — Soft oliveView RAL 130 40 10 →RAL 130 40 20 — Alpine lake greenView RAL 130 40 20 →RAL 130 40 30 — Gemstone greenView RAL 130 40 30 →RAL 130 50 10 — Dubuffet greenView RAL 130 50 10 →RAL 130 50 20 — Spanish greenView RAL 130 50 20 →RAL 130 50 30 — Algae greenView RAL 130 50 30 →RAL 130 50 40 — Hot pepper greenView RAL 130 50 40 →RAL 130 50 50 — Emerald clear greenView RAL 130 50 50 →RAL 130 60 10 — Matte sage greenView RAL 130 60 10 →RAL 130 60 20 — Old greenView RAL 130 60 20 →RAL 130 60 30 — Pea aubergine greenView RAL 130 60 30 →RAL 130 60 40 — Grasshopper greenView RAL 130 60 40 →RAL 130 60 50 — Parisian greenView RAL 130 60 50 →RAL 130 60 60 — Primal greenView RAL 130 60 60 →RAL 130 70 10 — Limestone greenView RAL 130 70 10 →RAL 130 70 20 — Soap greenView RAL 130 70 20 →RAL 130 70 30 — Watercolour greenView RAL 130 70 30 →RAL 130 70 40 — Vangogh greenView RAL 130 70 40 →RAL 130 70 50 — Apple greenView RAL 130 70 50 →RAL 130 70 60 — Ultra greenView RAL 130 70 60 →RAL 130 80 10 — Jade light greenView RAL 130 80 10 →RAL 130 80 20 — Enamel greenView RAL 130 80 20 →RAL 130 80 30 — Pastel greenView RAL 130 80 30 →RAL 130 80 40 — Jasmine greenView RAL 130 80 40 →RAL 130 80 50 — Crystal greenView RAL 130 80 50 →RAL 130 85 05 — Grape oil greenView RAL 130 85 05 →RAL 130 85 10 — Duchamp light greenView RAL 130 85 10 →RAL 130 85 20 — Pallid light greenView RAL 130 85 20 →RAL 130 85 30 — Viridine greenView RAL 130 85 30 →RAL 130 90 05 — Silver poplar whiteView RAL 130 90 05 →RAL 130 90 10 — Mediterranean greenView RAL 130 90 10 →RAL 130 90 20 — Spring greenView RAL 130 90 20 →RAL 130 93 05 — Bean whiteView RAL 130 93 05 →

More about hue 130

Those muted grey-greens are the area of sage and of weathered olive leaves. In interiors they work where calm is needed without the space having to turn neutral; in healthcare they are the colours that soften a setting without becoming childish. Green demands the least focusing effort of the eye of all colours, and at low saturation that advantage survives in full.

In the light half the range actually widens a little in saturation: 130 70 50 (Apple green), 130 80 40 (Jasmine green) and 130 85 30 (Viridine green) are clearly coloured and remain usable at wall size, because the high lightness carries the intensity. The lightest shade, 130 93 05 (Bean white) with an LRV of 82.9, reads as a white with a trace of green.

The range runs from LRV 9.2 to 82.9 — wide enough to separate floor, wall and ceiling from one another within this one hue.

With an average hue angle of 136 degrees, 130 lies in the cool half of the warm–cool scale, without coming anywhere near the coolness maximum at around 230 degrees. But at such low saturation the hue is hardly decisive: how cool a surface from this hue feels is settled more by the saturation than by the position on the circle. At C\* 10 this colour feels virtually neutral; at C\* 60 noticeably cool.

On the weight scale 130 is somewhat lighter than 100 and 110 — the hues with more yellow feel heavier — but here too you regulate the perceived weight of a surface with the lightness and not with the choice of colour.

The weakly saturated shades lie so close together that a screen does not separate them. Worse still: a grey-green takes on from its surroundings, and on a white carrier it reads greener than it will in the space. So lay the candidates on A4 next to the material and against the existing wall colour, and approve on the A4 colour samples as the colour standard.

Technical data

Hue: 130 · Shades: 35 · Lightness: L\* 30–93 · Saturation: C\* 05–60 · Lab values: per shade on the colour page · LRV: 9.2 to 82.9 · 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 120, RAL Design 140

Loose colour samples from this group

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