RAL Design System plus — hue 200

Eye grey and India blue both lie at L\* 50 and have an LRV of 21.1 and 21.2. In a light reflectance calculation they are interchangeable; in a colour scheme they are not. The first is a background colour that effaces itself, the second a colour that determines the picture.

That is the purest demonstration of what saturation does: it determines almost entirely how lively and eye-catching a surface looks, while lightness determines the weight and the hue mainly determines whether people appreciate the colour. If you want to make a surface calmer within this hue without making it lighter, lower the saturation — not the lightness, because that shifts the whole build-up.

The low saturations of this hue are much used in construction and industry, often without being noticed as colour at all: 200 20 15 Roof tile green, 200 30 15 Hornblende green, 200 40 15 Pyrite green. These are the colours of roofing, gutter cladding, technical installations and machine housings — surfaces that must not stand out but must not go dead grey either.

All 54 colours in this group

RAL 200 20 05 — Concealed greenView RAL 200 20 05 →RAL 200 20 10 — Dark pine greenView RAL 200 20 10 →RAL 200 20 15 — Roof tile greenView RAL 200 20 15 →RAL 200 20 20 — Shrub greenView RAL 200 20 20 →RAL 200 20 23 — Customs greenView RAL 200 20 23 →RAL 200 30 05 — Darkness greenView RAL 200 30 05 →RAL 200 30 10 — Tree bark greenView RAL 200 30 10 →RAL 200 30 15 — Hornblende greenView RAL 200 30 15 →RAL 200 30 20 — Malachite blue turquoiseView RAL 200 30 20 →RAL 200 30 25 — Antique turquoiseView RAL 200 30 25 →RAL 200 30 30 — Wool turquoiseView RAL 200 30 30 →RAL 200 30 33 — Ice dark turquoiseView RAL 200 30 33 →RAL 200 40 05 — Calcite grey greenView RAL 200 40 05 →RAL 200 40 10 — Brochantite greenView RAL 200 40 10 →RAL 200 40 15 — Pyrite greenView RAL 200 40 15 →RAL 200 40 20 — Dusky alpine blueView RAL 200 40 20 →RAL 200 40 25 — Bath greenView RAL 200 40 25 →RAL 200 40 30 — Mayan blueView RAL 200 40 30 →RAL 200 40 35 — Byzantine blueView RAL 200 40 35 →RAL 200 40 40 — Active turquoiseView RAL 200 40 40 →RAL 200 50 05 — North greyView RAL 200 50 05 →RAL 200 50 10 — Eye greyView RAL 200 50 10 →RAL 200 50 15 — Nickel ore greenView RAL 200 50 15 →RAL 200 50 20 — Seafoam greenView RAL 200 50 20 →RAL 200 50 25 — Kandinsky turquoiseView RAL 200 50 25 →RAL 200 50 30 — Caribbean turquoiseView RAL 200 50 30 →RAL 200 50 35 — Well blueView RAL 200 50 35 →RAL 200 50 40 — Industrial blueView RAL 200 50 40 →RAL 200 50 45 — India blueView RAL 200 50 45 →RAL 200 60 05 — Shady greyView RAL 200 60 05 →RAL 200 60 10 — North Cape greyView RAL 200 60 10 →RAL 200 60 15 — Woad indigoView RAL 200 60 15 →RAL 200 60 20 — Art nouveau turquoiseView RAL 200 60 20 →RAL 200 60 25 — Coolbox ice turquoiseView RAL 200 60 25 →RAL 200 60 30 — Aquamarine blueView RAL 200 60 30 →RAL 200 60 35 — Arctic blueView RAL 200 60 35 →RAL 200 60 40 — Wax crayon blueView RAL 200 60 40 →RAL 200 70 05 — Prince greyView RAL 200 70 05 →RAL 200 70 10 — Calcite blueView RAL 200 70 10 →RAL 200 70 15 — Cold front greenView RAL 200 70 15 →RAL 200 70 20 — Kingfisher turquoiseView RAL 200 70 20 →RAL 200 70 25 — Fresh soft blueView RAL 200 70 25 →RAL 200 80 05 — China light greenView RAL 200 80 05 →RAL 200 80 10 — Baroque chalk soft blueView RAL 200 80 10 →RAL 200 80 15 — Ice boutique turquoiseView RAL 200 80 15 →RAL 200 80 20 — Summer soft blueView RAL 200 80 20 →RAL 200 80 25 — Mountain lake blueView RAL 200 80 25 →RAL 200 85 05 — Raffia light greyView RAL 200 85 05 →RAL 200 85 10 — Cold air turquoiseView RAL 200 85 10 →RAL 200 85 15 — Frosty soft blueView RAL 200 85 15 →RAL 200 85 20 — Ice crystal blueView RAL 200 85 20 →RAL 200 90 05 — Frosty greenView RAL 200 90 05 →RAL 200 90 10 — Frosty white blueView RAL 200 90 10 →RAL 200 93 05 — Chilly whiteView RAL 200 93 05 →

More about hue 200

That is where the function of this half-hue lies. A purely neutral grey from the grey axis 000 picks up colour from its surroundings in practice and rarely looks neutral. A grey with a minute blue-green direction holds up better next to brick, timber and sand-coloured paving, because it absorbs the warm contrast of its surroundings instead of giving in to it. So anyone who genuinely wants a façade element to go unnoticed often ends up here and not in 000.

The saturated shades behave in the opposite way. Blue recedes: the eye places a blue surface further away than an equally light warm surface, an effect that matches the way distance out of doors shifts colour towards blue. 200 60 35 Arctic blue with LRV 30.4 on an end wall makes a space longer; the same colour on a ceiling makes it higher and colder.

On the warm–cool scale, with an average hue angle of 203 degrees, this hue approaches the coldest point of the circle, which lies at around 230 degrees. In use that means: saturated shades from 200 lower the perceived temperature of a space noticeably. In a north-facing room that is seldom wanted, in a warm production environment very much so.

54 shades, from L\* 20 to L\* 93, with saturation up to C\* 45. The full lightness scale is present: 200 20 05 Concealed green with an LRV of 6.2 as the darkest, 200 93 05 Chilly white with 83.1 as the lightest. In between, the muted part is densely occupied and the saturated part thin — a distribution that matches exactly how this hue is used.

At the light end lie two usable working colours that show the difference between the halves once more: 200 80 05 China light green at LRV 58.1 reads as a cool white, 200 85 15 Frosty soft blue at 66.8 reads as light blue. One block of lightness apart, ten blocks of saturation, two different spaces.

The muted shades from this hue lie so close together that a monitor cannot separate them; two neighbouring positions are often identical on screen and not in reality. Choose with the fan deck or colour book in hand, next to the material, and approve on the A4 colour samples as the colour standard.

Technical data

Hue: 200 · Shades: 54 · Lightness: L\* 20–93 · Saturation: C\* 05–45 · Lab values: per shade on the colour page · LRV: 6.2 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 190, RAL Design 210

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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