What is RAL Color Card?
RAL is a German color card brand. Like the American Pantone color card, it is an international color card widely used in China. As early as 1927. RAL began to enter the field of color and created a unified color language to establish standard statistics and naming for a variety of colors. Through such color standards, users around the world can understand and apply them.
Simply put, the RAL color card is a reference standard for color. It is the embodiment of a certain color in nature on the color card. Designers can choose colors based on the color card and then hand it over to the printing department for printing and production. Through a unified reference standard, color selection, comparison, and communication can be achieved. At present, there are many brands of color cards, and the RAL color card is only one of the more commonly used ones. There are also many series under the RAL color card brand. Users need to pay attention to distinguish when using them. The traditional RAL color card system uses four digits to represent different color standards. At the beginning, the RAL color card had only more than 40 colors, but now it has developed to 2101 colors, which are widely used as a standard for selecting colors. There are the basic standard RAL840-HR color card for matte colors and the basic standard RAL841-GL color card for glossy colors. These two color cards contain standard color samples required by major industries, and are also color samples provided by key registered research institutes for application and design, and also include safe color numbers that meet ISO standards.
How to use the German RAL color card?
The RAL design system uses a quick and simple method to find the right color. The basis of the RAL system is the color card, which shows the same 1688 system colors as the original atlas samples, and they are arranged logically according to hue, brightness and chroma. The starting point for choosing a color is the color that appears on the first page of the color card (there will be a rough color map in the booklet), which will tell you which page in the color card has the corresponding color.
For example, you want green, then you turn the color card to page 160. browse it, and compare the color before and after it. You will find that this color gradually turns yellow in one direction and blue in the other direction. If you pick a color near page 160. you should compare it with another color near it to finally decide on the color you want.
Next, find the color in the corresponding color card sample. Now know that lightness increases from the bottom to the top and chroma changes from left to right. If you have a feeling that the color you need is between the two color samples in the color card, you can name the color according to your purpose. The name of the color is a combination of the three values of color card (H), chroma (L), and lightness (S). The last page of the color card shows the lightness values of gray, from 15 to 90 from left to right. In addition, the second page of the color card is the matte color, which is called these grays.
The color samples of the RAL color design system are unfolded to make you choose the color of your choice. They have 1688 colors like the color card. The color wheel is divided into 8 areas, each area has its own color sample. Each area starts with the lowest lightness and the lowest chroma. The color of the order gradually increases in chroma, and the next level of lightness is accompanied by different chroma. The last actual color sample has the largest chroma and the largest lightness.
