RAL Design System plus — hue 250

With 39 shades this is the most thinly occupied hue between 220 and 270. The range itself is ordinary — L\* 20 to L\* 90, C\* 05 to C\* 40, light reflectance value 6.3 to 75.8 — but within that range there are fewer positions than with the neighbours, and you notice that when composing a series.

Where in 240 both a blue-grey and a full blue are available at one lightness, here you more often have to shift. RAL Design 250 60 10 Bird blue grey and RAL Design 250 60 35 Stratos blue do still form such a pair, but in this hue that is the exception and not the rule. If you want to build a colour scheme with fixed lightness steps and varying saturation, you will get further with 240 or 260.

When making that choice, watch the upper end. The lightest shade of 250 is RAL Design 250 90 05 Ice white with a light reflectance value of 75.8 — the lowest upper limit of the six blue hues here. Where a specification prescribes a minimum light reflectance value for a ceiling or a light surface, that difference of a few points can be decisive.

All 39 colours in this group

RAL 250 20 20 — Cosmos blueView RAL 250 20 20 →RAL 250 20 25 — Dark denim blueView RAL 250 20 25 →RAL 250 30 15 — Black Forest blueView RAL 250 30 15 →RAL 250 30 20 — Swallow blueView RAL 250 30 20 →RAL 250 30 25 — Navy dark blueView RAL 250 30 25 →RAL 250 30 30 — Pompeii blueView RAL 250 30 30 →RAL 250 40 10 — Trekking blueView RAL 250 40 10 →RAL 250 40 15 — Steel blue greyView RAL 250 40 15 →RAL 250 40 20 — Berry blueView RAL 250 40 20 →RAL 250 40 25 — Linen blueView RAL 250 40 25 →RAL 250 40 30 — Pool blueView RAL 250 40 30 →RAL 250 40 35 — Kingfisher blueView RAL 250 40 35 →RAL 250 40 40 — Europe blueView RAL 250 40 40 →RAL 250 50 10 — Metal greyView RAL 250 50 10 →RAL 250 50 15 — Titanium blueView RAL 250 50 15 →RAL 250 50 20 — Mallorca blueView RAL 250 50 20 →RAL 250 50 25 — Linoleum blueView RAL 250 50 25 →RAL 250 50 30 — Prominent blueView RAL 250 50 30 →RAL 250 50 35 — Turkish blueView RAL 250 50 35 →RAL 250 50 40 — Primal blueView RAL 250 50 40 →RAL 250 60 10 — Bird blue greyView RAL 250 60 10 →RAL 250 60 15 — Gentle blueView RAL 250 60 15 →RAL 250 60 20 — Aragonite blueView RAL 250 60 20 →RAL 250 60 25 — Pearl blueView RAL 250 60 25 →RAL 250 60 30 — Topaz blueView RAL 250 60 30 →RAL 250 60 35 — Stratos blueView RAL 250 60 35 →RAL 250 60 40 — Structural blueView RAL 250 60 40 →RAL 250 70 10 — Foggy blueView RAL 250 70 10 →RAL 250 70 15 — Chalk blueView RAL 250 70 15 →RAL 250 70 20 — Medium blueView RAL 250 70 20 →RAL 250 70 25 — Meadow blossom blueView RAL 250 70 25 →RAL 250 70 30 — Broom butterfly blueView RAL 250 70 30 →RAL 250 80 10 — Light cyanView RAL 250 80 10 →RAL 250 80 15 — Himalaya blueView RAL 250 80 15 →RAL 250 80 20 — Velvet blueView RAL 250 80 20 →RAL 250 85 05 — White blueView RAL 250 85 05 →RAL 250 85 10 — Washing powder soft blueView RAL 250 85 10 →RAL 250 85 15 — Diamond soft blueView RAL 250 85 15 →RAL 250 90 05 — Ice whiteView RAL 250 90 05 →

More about hue 250

This is the area people know from clothing, not from buildings. Indigo on cotton lies here, and the whole range from new to washed-out jeans runs within this hue from RAL Design 250 20 25 Dark denim blue to the light, weakly saturated shades at the top.

That is an advantage and a pitfall. Advantage: the colours feel familiar and are rarely rejected. Pitfall: the association is with a matt, textile surface that scatters light diffusely. Lay the same shade down in high gloss and it looks harder and deeper than expected, because a glossy surface reflects and optically saturates the colour. In this area the gloss level is therefore a colour decision, not a detail of the finish.

Blue from this area is often combined with glass, anodised aluminium and bright steel — curtain walling, balustrades, services work. That is exactly the combination in which blue becomes least reliable, because glass and metal have a colour direction of their own. Float glass is greenish, coated glass blue or bronze, and anodised aluminium always has a side.

Next to greenish glass a shade from 250 loses its blueness and the red component comes forward: the colour reads more violet than intended. In such cases, do not assess the colour sample against the drawing but the colour sample against the actual material, on site and under the same light.

With this hue, metamerism plays a stronger part than with the pure blue of 240. Two shades that look the same in daylight can diverge under LED lighting, because white LEDs have a peak in the blue part of the spectrum and a trough beside it. Colours with a red component in an otherwise blue colour respond to that most unpredictably.

So where colour match matters between components from different deliveries or processes — powder on aluminium next to paint on steel — assess under at least two light sources. For the approval itself, the A4 colour samples remain the colour standard.

Technical data

Hue: 250 · Shades: 39 · Lightness: L\* 20–90 · Saturation: C\* 05–40 · Lab values: per shade on the colour page · LRV: 6.3 to 75.8 · 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 240, RAL Design 260

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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