RAL Color Standard | Hacker News Reader

RAL Color Standard

en.wikipedia.org

48 pointselsewhen39 comments

Spot color has a place in my heart. I remember back in the early 1980s when every article in Scientific American had illustrations in black, white and one other color which varied with the issue.

Up until 1974 they had the illustrator Rodger Hayward

https://invention.si.edu/illustrating-amateur-scientist-scie...

who would draw a laboratory setup including a stool and I knew he knew exactly how to build the stool.

> who would draw a laboratory setup including a stool and I knew he knew exactly how to build the stool.

I love that about illustrators. A decent illustrator is also simultaneously an engineer and a designer.

And every good engineer was once also a decent illustrator. Such skills are less respected these days as we draw so many lines between art and engineering. Few if any recent engineering grads could freehand a simple image of a bird.

Old Wired issues made great use of spot metallics, neons, and UV too.

Their “wrong theory:” https://www.wired.com/2014/09/wrong-theory/

back in the early 1980s when every article in Scientific American had illustrations in black, white and one other color which varied with the issue

Oh that sounds lovely! And potentially a useful memory aid: "I don't remember when I read it, but I think it was in a dark magenta issue…"

Special trick: if you want something to look like it was made in Germany, paint it in RAL colours. Works like a charm every time.

And as font, use DIN 1451 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_1451 ) ... or Tannenberg ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannenberg_(typeface) ) for "retro" look.

> "And as font, use DIN 1451"

Yes

> " ... or Tannenberg for "retro" look."

Only if with retro you mean a kitsch Hollywood version of Germany whose role model only existed for a few years - from 1935 until the Nazis banned Fraktur-style typefaces (like Tannenberg) because they deemed them too Jewish.

Defining a colour is a perversely difficult task. Does the RAL system offer anything unique? Wikipedia tells us it is based on the CIELAB and expresses color in terms of it's hue, saturation and lightness. But does it have any advantage over (for example) the Munsell color space? Or is the difference between the two just a cultural thing, like Celsius and Fahrenheit?

Hue is the beast in the box. How many other natural phenomena are expressed as terms, not degrees of intensity?

I often imagine how much simpler color science would be if humans did not possess the ability to perceive hue difference. Indeed color would likely be perceived as too simple a phenomenon to warrent scientific enquiry.

I'd love a better understanding of the intellectual encumbrance of Pantone colors, and whether RAL colors are more free in that regard.

To be frank, I suspect that there is little intellectual meat to either of these systems. They appear to both be no more than formally aproved indexes.

They produce calibration sets. I'm not sure how they choose the colours they do (nor the names), but their most important job is to distribute the color sets with perfectly consistent colors, which isn't "free" work.

RAL is copyrighted, but they don't have a pack of legal maniacs chasing you down for using them. For example, Festool's specific green is RAL 6018 (Yellow Green) and you can use it as an interchange standard without paying them.

It's amazing that Pantone and Ral managed to get away with copyrighting something so fundemantal. Surely these should be international standards, like centremetres or Celsius.

Copyright is something automatic, it's also not like these companies have copyrighted the "color", but the mapping between color and description. The only way they wouldn't have a copyright is if they get challenged in court and loose. There is also a serious difference between RAL and Patone, RAL is managed by a non-profit corporation.

Is there much of a difference in the cost of it compared to pantone or some other system? I know pantone has more colours and seems to be added to more often, based on the wiki page.

RAL doesn't cost anything to use, as far as I know; like, people just make RAL 6018 filament for printing "Festool Green" stuff and put RAL 6018 on the product spec. They offer some certification stuff for more integrated uses and might have some licensing for software uses, I think? But the survival advice for Pantone is "duck and cover"; RAL has no such rep.

My RAL color fan (got mostly in order to match filament to colors) was $26.

Another aspect in addition to what others said: digital color libraries are generally available for free or low cost.

  - Pantone recently removed its color libraries from Adobe products to make them an additional subscription of $14.99/month
  - Pantone colors are always a subscription on color readers/spectrometers unless you buy X-Rite's high end readers. RAL is available for free on most color readers.
  - NCS is a bit between RAL and Pantone in that regard, they sell an affordable color reader (for its full spectrum capabilities) that includes the NCS library, but it is a paid subscription for other readers, albeit cheaper than Pantone.

I would guesst aht the added value of RAL is being a formal standard, such that it can be mandated by laws and regulations to paint things with a given RAL color.

For example, refurbishing a building within a protected area (close to a historic monument is a typical scenario) will require the use of materials (paints, window frames, doors, blinds) coated with a specific subset of RAL colors, selected by a public body to match the intended scenery.

That seems to suggest that it is an alternative to Muncell, no better or worse. Muncell is the formal standard used to define the color of dental impamnts and beer, amongst other things.

Munsell is similar, yes. RAL is conventionally used for varnishes, powder-coats, and (sometimes) general plastics. I'm not familiar with Munsell's attitudes towards use, though. RAL is notable in being pretty lax about casual use of their color system.

> Does the RAL system offer anything unique?

RAL is quite old and entrenched. I'm not sure if it "offers" anything in particular but at least over here a ton of colors used in the wild are just RAL codes.

It fulfills a similar role to Pantone and predates it by about three decades. WWII is probably to blame for its limited spread beyond German-speaking countries. But in Germany and Switzerland it's the preferred way for specifying paint and coating colors.

Celsius and Fahrenheit is a good comparison. RAL became widespread and nobody sees a reason to switch; but other regions prefer other systems because of how history played out.

Most paints in the Netherlands is also with RAL. Painters can look at your wall and tell the code.

> But does it have any advantage over (for example) the Munsell color space?

I think I am right in saying RAL is a more open system than Munsell. I think anyone can print their own RAL guide as long as it meets the standard. Can't find a reference

Even specifying something like a RAL number is not enough. E.g. powder coatings with the same spec from different manufacturers or even from different lots from the same manufacturer can look noticeably different if placed next to each other. So in order to get a perfect match you need to coat your stuff from one batch of powder coating.

RAL is a lot, lot cheaper than Munsell or Pantone (now both owned by X-Rite) and is particularly well suited for Industrial Design.

  - you can get yourself a fan of RAL Classic colors for $16, which are solid colors that include enough grays, whites and colors to get started and cover all basic needs, and that most industrial/finishing shops already have
  - most shops now also accept Pantone PMS C (coated), which cost $260, but Pantone comes from printing and so has no whites, you need to add FHI TPG+TCX (another $260) to get whites. Pantone recommends replacing the fans every 12-18 months before their die age
  - Munsell is a "full" color space so as such it is inherently more expensive (even more so that it is now owned by X-Rite), with a rich history in USDA standards, food QA, science and artists. NCS and RAL "Design" also feature "full" color space, most certainly a lot cheaper than Munsell

Cost is important because everybody in your supply chain need to have the color system on hand: designers, marketing, suppliers, QA.

Curated colors:

  - RAL Classic (216) $16, RAL Effect (490) $70
  - Pantone PMS (2,390), Pantone FHI (2,625) each $260
  - RAL P1 Classic plastics (100 colors + textures): $2,100 
  - RAL P2 Effect plastics (200 colors + textures): $2,700
  - Pantone plastics (1,755): $9,078

Color spaces:

  - Munsell (1,600): $1,525 - $1,625 (Munsell book of colors matte - glossy), cheaper subselections of colors based around neutral, soil, plant & rock colors
  - NCS (2,050): $210, used a lot in architecture/interior design, from Sweden
  - RAL Design (1,825): $160, all its colors are additional to/not in Classic/Design

If you need a few colors, a curated system is more adapted and cheaper, but a curated system with thousands of colors (Pantone) is more expensive and less versatile than a system based on a color space.

As you can see the whole RAL catalog/system of color is designed for cost and so that you can start small and expand, and have enough variety at each level + it has nice features that shows its Industrial orientation such as all colors being solid and textured plastics.

RAL catalog has each system building on the other, Munsell is a color space with subsets picked from it for specific uses, NCS is always the full color space, Pantone is a gigantic, somewhat incoherent curated system that started with printing and expanded into fashion & cosmetics.

Munsell is based around different sectors of industry & science, so color subsets availability, design and price dictate that it is uneconomical for other sectors or more general design outside gov standards. E.g. Munsell even has a frozen french fry color standard book! [1]

There are many more color systems and color spaces, but those are the main ones for which there is wide availability of physical color books around the World.

[1] https://www.pantone.com/products/munsell/munsell-usda-frozen...

My first exposure to RAL was working as a consultant for a European fenestration company in the US ( ecowindowsusa.com). I got to know the color wheels intimately. The European uPVC, Aluminum and wood windows and doors are out of this world in terms of performance and features. It seems everyone liked RAL 9005 ( Black ) or RAL 7016 ( Anthracite grey ). As a curious fact, it turns out that Poland is a world leader in window manufacturing, with a 16.1% share of global exports and an average export value that increases 18% per year.

Am Dutch, can confirm. My window frames (some tilt and pan) are RAL 7016, ceiling RAL 9010 and walls RAL 9001 (or vice versa, idk).

I have seen the word "defenestration" many times before, but I think that your comment is the first time ever that I see "fenestration" o_O

I had a very low volume bicycle manufacturing business some time back and relied exclusively on RAL for color choices. Coincidentally I was in graphic design at the same time and used Photoshop color management for publications.

Now I make my monitors and phone screens dark because I'm tired of staring into lights.

Oh, other countries don't use RAL? Do you use something else? I find it so convenient to order something in a RAL colour to match the colour palette of a building, or to buy power sockets in RAL9010 to match the type of white wall.

I’ve used it in the US for powder coating spec a few times.

Pantone.

Historically, Pantone & Munsell in the US of A.

Pantone is really print-oriented, even if they've surfed on the brand to expand to fashion & cosmetics. That's why the standard Pantone PMS colors don't have whites. Munsell is more general purpose.

But RAL & NCS are also used widely, and will probably both keep going up in popularity for reasons I outlined in my other comment on this thread.

I've recently clad my garden office in a composite cladding, the brand makes use of RAL. Makes it much easier to get the matching trim and silicone and even a touch up pen for any scuffs or scratches

RAL8000 was very popular in the Bundeswehr.

Even German flag is defined in RAL:

RAL 9005

RAL 3020

RAL 1021

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