RAL Design System plus — hue 340

Magenta is the only colour family in the system that has no place of its own in the spectrum. Red and violet are both there, but between the two ends of the spectrum there is nothing; magenta only arises because the eye receives both ends at once and makes one colour of them. That is also why the colour circle closes here: not because nature prescribes it, but because perception ties red and violet together.

That is not a theoretical nicety. A colour built up from two ends responds more strongly to the light source than a colour lying in one region. If the spectral composition of the light changes — and with LED it changes considerably — the balance between the red and the blue part shifts, and the shade tips visibly towards red or towards violet. Two shades from 340 that differ clearly in daylight can coincide under a cheap LED fitting, and the other way round.

The saturation reaches C\* 45 here and no further. That is low compared with the orange and yellow part of the circle, and it has a material cause: the pigments that cover this area — the quinacridones and the dioxazines — are transparent by nature and expensive. They give an intense colour in a thin film, but cover badly over a substrate of a different colour.

All 55 colours in this group

RAL 340 20 05 — Liquorice blackView RAL 340 20 05 →RAL 340 20 10 — Mangosteen violetView RAL 340 20 10 →RAL 340 20 15 — Sitter redView RAL 340 20 15 →RAL 340 20 20 — Juice violetView RAL 340 20 20 →RAL 340 20 25 — Prestige mauveView RAL 340 20 25 →RAL 340 30 05 — Apple herb blackView RAL 340 30 05 →RAL 340 30 10 — Passionfruit mauveView RAL 340 30 10 →RAL 340 30 15 — Dark fig violetView RAL 340 30 15 →RAL 340 30 20 — Ruby violetView RAL 340 30 20 →RAL 340 30 25 — Blackberry deep redView RAL 340 30 25 →RAL 340 30 30 — Deep redView RAL 340 30 30 →RAL 340 30 35 — Velvet mauveView RAL 340 30 35 →RAL 340 30 38 — Forest fruit redView RAL 340 30 38 →RAL 340 40 05 — Mauve brownView RAL 340 40 05 →RAL 340 40 10 — Spinel greyView RAL 340 40 10 →RAL 340 40 15 — Earth brown violetView RAL 340 40 15 →RAL 340 40 20 — Dahlia matte redView RAL 340 40 20 →RAL 340 40 25 — Brocade violetView RAL 340 40 25 →RAL 340 40 30 — Madder magentaView RAL 340 40 30 →RAL 340 40 35 — Club mauveView RAL 340 40 35 →RAL 340 40 40 — Cherry redView RAL 340 40 40 →RAL 340 40 45 — Magenta redView RAL 340 40 45 →RAL 340 50 05 — Jubilee greyView RAL 340 50 05 →RAL 340 50 10 — Port wine redView RAL 340 50 10 →RAL 340 50 15 — Raw garnet violaView RAL 340 50 15 →RAL 340 50 20 — Milkwort redView RAL 340 50 20 →RAL 340 50 25 — Rust magentaView RAL 340 50 25 →RAL 340 50 30 — Raspberry jelly redView RAL 340 50 30 →RAL 340 50 35 — Thimble redView RAL 340 50 35 →RAL 340 50 40 — Cyclamen redView RAL 340 50 40 →RAL 340 50 45 — Brilliant carmineView RAL 340 50 45 →RAL 340 60 05 — Heather red greyView RAL 340 60 05 →RAL 340 60 10 — Piano mauveView RAL 340 60 10 →RAL 340 60 15 — Evening pinkView RAL 340 60 15 →RAL 340 60 20 — Capri fashion pinkView RAL 340 60 20 →RAL 340 60 25 — Antique hot pinkView RAL 340 60 25 →RAL 340 60 30 — Cheek redView RAL 340 60 30 →RAL 340 60 35 — Hollyhock blossom pinkView RAL 340 60 35 →RAL 340 60 40 — Bishop redView RAL 340 60 40 →RAL 340 70 05 — Mauve greyView RAL 340 70 05 →RAL 340 70 10 — Buckwheat mauveView RAL 340 70 10 →RAL 340 70 15 — Hollyhock pinkView RAL 340 70 15 →RAL 340 70 20 — Idyllic pinkView RAL 340 70 20 →RAL 340 70 25 — Morning glory pinkView RAL 340 70 25 →RAL 340 70 30 — Soft fuschiaView RAL 340 70 30 →RAL 340 70 35 — Firm pinkView RAL 340 70 35 →RAL 340 80 05 — Piano grey roseView RAL 340 80 05 →RAL 340 80 10 — Mint blossom roseView RAL 340 80 10 →RAL 340 80 15 — Scandalous roseView RAL 340 80 15 →RAL 340 80 20 — Bonbon roseView RAL 340 80 20 →RAL 340 85 05 — Strawberry creamView RAL 340 85 05 →RAL 340 85 10 — Light flamingo pinkView RAL 340 85 10 →RAL 340 85 15 — Lacquer mauveView RAL 340 85 15 →RAL 340 90 05 — Rose whiteView RAL 340 90 05 →RAL 340 93 05 — Dress pinkView RAL 340 93 05 →

More about hue 340

For execution that means two things. The primer does more here than with a neutral colour: over a grey ground the same shade comes out dull and over a pink ground too light. And film thickness carries through more strongly, so a sprayed surface and a rollered surface in the same code diverge sooner than with an opaque colour from the green area. Count on an extra coat and assess on the final substrate.

Magenta is moreover the area where discolouration in exterior use is noticed fastest. Not because the modern pigments are poor — the quinacridones are in fact among the most lightfast organic pigments there are — but because any deterioration here shows up as a change of direction. If a blue fades, it stays blue; if a magenta fades, it becomes a dirty pink or a grey-violet, and the eye reads that at once as a different colour.

On south-facing façades and on horizontal surfaces a saturated shade from this hue is therefore a deliberate choice with consequences for maintenance. In interiors, in corridors and in north light it hardly matters.

From L\* 20 to L\* 93, with an LRV from 6.1 to 82.9. The darkest position is RAL Design 340 20 15, Sitter red — a red that reads as a brown-violet in shadow and only shows its colour in full light. The lightest, 340 93 05 Dress pink, is hardly more than a coloured white.

What is interesting about this hue lies in its width at one lightness level. At L\* 40 you will find both 340 40 10 Spinel grey and 340 40 45 Magenta red: the same lightness, the same perceived weight, and yet two colours whose effect has nothing in common. Liveliness and prominence are determined almost entirely by saturation, not by lightness and not by hue. So if you want to hold on to calm in a colour scheme but keep the weight the same, here you move horizontally and not vertically.

On the warm–cool scale 340 lies in the warm half, but not outspokenly. The maximum of colour warmth lies at around hue angle 50 degrees, in the oranges, and the minimum at around 230 degrees, in the blues; with an average angle of 342 degrees this hue is on the warm side, but far from the peak. In practice the effect is therefore unstable: the muted shades in this area look cool next to timber and warm next to concrete, and saturated magentas largely escape the classification — they are read as bright rather than as warm or cool.

Precisely because the light source matters so much here, a choice made on screen is useless: magenta is one of the few areas where a monitor can be more saturated than the opaque paint will ever be. Choose from the fan deck or in the colour book, assess under the light of the final situation, and record the approval on the A4 colour samples as the colour standard — never on a fan-deck sample.

Technical data

Hue: 340 · Shades: 55 · Lightness: L\* 20–93 · Saturation: C\* 05–45 · Lab values: per shade on the colour page · LRV: 6.1 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 330, RAL Design 350

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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