RAL Design System plus — hue 360

The practically most important property of this hue is its neighbour on the other side of zero. 360 and 010 lie only one step apart and therefore describe virtually the same red, but they stand on either side of a number boundary that, in the fan deck and in the atlas, is the greatest distance in the whole book: the first page and the last.

In practice that costs time. Anyone looking for a carmine who finds nothing suitable in 010 closes the book without ever having looked in 360. So with a blue-red, always look in both hues, however far apart they lie physically. At low saturation — below about C\* 15 — shades from 360 and 010 at the same lightness level are barely distinguishable from one another; only at higher saturation does the difference become visible, and then 010 tips towards orange-red and 360 holds on to its blue core.

This is the area of the historical madder and cochineal lakes: the red of madder, of carmine, of the painted and textile reds from four centuries of interiors. That origin explains why shades from this hue keep coming back in restoration and in work on listed buildings — not because they are fashionable, but because the existing work lies here.

All 45 colours in this group

RAL 360 20 15 — Piermont stone redView RAL 360 20 15 →RAL 360 30 05 — Soot redView RAL 360 30 05 →RAL 360 30 10 — Peppercorn redView RAL 360 30 10 →RAL 360 30 15 — Zinfandel redView RAL 360 30 15 →RAL 360 30 20 — Art deco redView RAL 360 30 20 →RAL 360 30 25 — Clinker redView RAL 360 30 25 →RAL 360 30 30 — Cherry juice redView RAL 360 30 30 →RAL 360 30 35 — Palace redView RAL 360 30 35 →RAL 360 30 40 — Ember redView RAL 360 30 40 →RAL 360 40 05 — Roasted blackView RAL 360 40 05 →RAL 360 40 10 — Mocha brownView RAL 360 40 10 →RAL 360 40 15 — Ruby greyView RAL 360 40 15 →RAL 360 40 20 — Baroque redView RAL 360 40 20 →RAL 360 40 25 — Frenzied redView RAL 360 40 25 →RAL 360 40 30 — RedcurrantView RAL 360 40 30 →RAL 360 40 35 — Orient pinkView RAL 360 40 35 →RAL 360 40 40 — Aurora magentaView RAL 360 40 40 →RAL 360 40 45 — Cardinal redView RAL 360 40 45 →RAL 360 40 50 — Parlour redView RAL 360 40 50 →RAL 360 50 05 — Pumice greyView RAL 360 50 05 →RAL 360 50 10 — Pomace redView RAL 360 50 10 →RAL 360 50 15 — Evening crimsonView RAL 360 50 15 →RAL 360 50 20 — Copper pinkView RAL 360 50 20 →RAL 360 50 25 — Art Nouveau pinkView RAL 360 50 25 →RAL 360 50 30 — Cosmetic redView RAL 360 50 30 →RAL 360 50 35 — Indian pinkView RAL 360 50 35 →RAL 360 50 40 — Kir royale roseView RAL 360 50 40 →RAL 360 50 45 — Cockscomb redView RAL 360 50 45 →RAL 360 50 50 — Persian redView RAL 360 50 50 →RAL 360 60 05 — Ash pinkView RAL 360 60 05 →RAL 360 60 10 — Majolica mauveView RAL 360 60 10 →RAL 360 60 15 — Fig fruit mauveView RAL 360 60 15 →RAL 360 60 20 — Noble lilacView RAL 360 60 20 →RAL 360 60 25 — Light redView RAL 360 60 25 →RAL 360 70 05 — Tea blossom pinkView RAL 360 70 05 →RAL 360 70 10 — Quartz pinkView RAL 360 70 10 →RAL 360 70 15 — Opaline pinkView RAL 360 70 15 →RAL 360 80 05 — Mother-of-pearl pinkView RAL 360 80 05 →RAL 360 80 10 — Venetian pinkView RAL 360 80 10 →RAL 360 80 15 — Soap pinkView RAL 360 80 15 →RAL 360 85 05 — Theatre powder roseView RAL 360 85 05 →RAL 360 85 10 — Lotus pinkView RAL 360 85 10 →RAL 360 90 05 — Ice pinkView RAL 360 90 05 →RAL 360 90 10 — Cake frostingView RAL 360 90 10 →RAL 360 93 05 — Arrowhead whiteView RAL 360 93 05 →

More about hue 360

When matching historical work the same warning applies as with weathered brickwork, but more sharply: the old organic red lakes are the least lightfast pigments in the whole tradition. What you find is almost never the original colour, and in sheltered places — behind a fixing, in the corner of a moulding — you will find a considerably more saturated red than on the exposed surface. Decide first which of the two you want to reproduce before you start measuring.

From L\* 20 to L\* 93, with an LRV from 6.4 to 83.0 and saturation up to C\* 50. The darkest positions — 360 20 15 Piermont stone red and 360 30 30 Cherry juice red — are the usable façade and frame colours of this hue. They do something light colours cannot: at an LRV of around 6 the surface weighs heavily and recedes, and at the same time the colour stays unmistakably red in full light. That is the combination from which dark frames and shutters derive their effect.

Two limitations go with it. A dark colour on an exterior surface in the sun rises high in surface temperature, which on plastic frames and on thin panels leads to deformation; check the lower LRV limit the supplier prescribes for the profile before you dive below LRV 20. And a dark saturated red demands a closed, even build-up, because in this area any unevenness in film thickness is immediately visible as a lighter or duller field.

Around L\* 40 lies the widest spread: from 360 40 20 Baroque red to 360 40 50 Parlour red, the same weight at twice the saturation. Above that the red becomes softer and shifts towards dusky pink and mauve — 360 60 10 Majolica mauve, 360 70 15 Opaline pink — colours that are barely recognised as a colour on a large wall but do warm the space noticeably. The lightest two, 360 90 05 Ice pink and 360 93 05 Arrowhead white, are the coloured whites of this hue.

Finally the notation, because here the system makes one exception that causes confusion. A circle of 360 degrees has no 360 position: it coincides with zero. In this system that is not so. 000 is the grey axis — the axis without a hue — and 360 is a full hue with 45 shades. So the circle runs from 010 to 360, with 000 as its centre and not as its starting point. A shade written down as 000 40 50 does not exist: on the grey axis the saturation is always 00.

A saturated blue-red is the area where screens fall furthest short: what a monitor shows here cannot be made opaque. So choose from the colour book or the fan deck, assess the dark shades at a larger size than a sample — dark colours always look blacker at small size than they do on a façade — and record the approval on the A4 colour samples as the colour standard.

With this, the circle is complete. Take one step on from this hue and you are back at the grey axis where the system begins.

Technical data

Hue: 360 · Shades: 45 · Lightness: L\* 20–93 · Saturation: C\* 05–50 · Lab values: per shade on the colour page · LRV: 6.4 to 83.0 · 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 350, RAL Design 000

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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