RAL Design System plus — hue 220
A trace of green in blue works as a damper. Where 230 and 240 have a sharp, outspoken coolness, 220 stays friendlier in use: the colour cools a space without turning hard. That explains why this area keeps coming back so persistently in healthcare, education and laboratories — exactly what the official name of RAL Design 220 80 10, Clinical soft blue, already indicates.
The downside is that this green residue is hard to hold on to. In a colour scheme next to a genuinely green surface, a shade from 220 loses its blueness and tips optically towards green-grey. Next to red or orange the opposite happens and it becomes bluer than the measurement indicates. Simultaneous contrast bites harder in this part of the circle than in the warm hues, because the eye has fewer fixed references here.
This hue counts 51 shades and runs from L\* 20 to L\* 90, with saturation from C\* 05 to C\* 40. Its centre of gravity lies in the middle field, around L\* 40 to 60: there the shades stand side by side at both low and high saturation and you can genuinely choose within one hue. Towards the ends the field narrows — at L\* 90 only the lowest saturation remains, RAL Design 220 90 05 Cold soft blue.
All 51 colours in this group
More about hue 220
You will find the highest saturation not at the dark end but in the lower middle range, with RAL Design 220 40 40 Cyan blue. That is typical of blue: the point of maximum intensity lies lower on the lightness scale than with yellow or orange, where saturation rises along with lightness.
For blue, C\* 40 is not a shortcoming but a limit of what can be made opaque. The pigments that reach this area — phthalocyanines and the classic iron blues — have great tinting strength but low lightness; if you want intensity and lightness both, white has to go in and the saturation drops immediately. Of all the colour attributes it is precisely saturation that determines how lively and eye-catching a surface looks, so that ceiling is noticeable in practice: a blue from this hue never becomes as loud as a red or a yellow, whatever you do to it.
With a light reflectance value from 6.2 to 77.9, this hue covers almost the full range achievable in an opaque paint. For ceilings, walls and large façade surfaces that is the usable side of 220: the light, weakly saturated shades return enough light not to let a space close in, while they lack the neutrality of a grey and so do give a direction.
At the dark end stands RAL Design 220 20 15 Artist blue, with a light reflectance value of 6.2. Values like that behave as black: on an exterior surface in the sun the surface temperature rises far, with stress in the substrate and accelerated ageing of the binder as a result. With dark blue that is a more real objection than the colourfastness of the pigment itself.
Blue shifts less under artificial light than green, but the green residue in this hue is sensitive to it: under warm light it drops out and the colour reads as ordinary blue. So assess under the light of the final situation and, for approval, lay the A4 colour samples next to the work as the colour standard, not a fan-deck sample.
Technical data
Hue: 220 · Shades: 51 · Lightness: L\* 20–90 · Saturation: C\* 05–40 · Lab values: per shade on the colour page · LRV: 6.2 to 77.9 · 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 210, RAL Design 230
Click a colour for the available formats, or see the full product range in the shop.