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Safety sign colors

By 15. August 2020May 4th, 2022No Comments

Topics

Safety sign colors

2020-08-15

The colors of the ISO 7010 safety signs are defined in ISO 3864-4. This means that in the informatively named Annex E, color names from different color systems are given as examples for the individual safety colors. The specifications are therefore not normative specifications in the proper sense, but are absolutely useful in practice.

In detail these are color names for the color systems:

  • RAL (color system of the RAL Institute)
  • Munsell (Munsell Color Order System)
  • BS 5252 (British Standard color system)
  • NCS (Natural Colour System)

With the color names and color sample cards of the publishers the correct security color could be selected and set. This is currently not a practical way. Relevant for the color names are the color values in the color spaces CMYK and RGB.

The following table contains approximate values for the color values of the RAL color system. Approximate values, because the representation of the colors depends on the interpreting output device. For example:

  • Displaying software, such as Internet browser or PDF reader
  • Screen with its technical possibilities and settings
  • Printer and printing process with its technical possibilities, processing software and the medium to be printed
Safety colorRALCMYKRGB
RedRAL 3001 Signal red20 / 100 / 90 / 10161 / 38 / 45
BlueRAL 5005 Signal blue100 / 40 / 0 / 400 / 72 / 115
YellowRAL 1003 Signal yellow5 / 20 / 90 / 0232 / 191 / 40
GreenRAL 6032 Signal green90 / 10 / 80 / 00 / 142 / 94
WhiteRAL 9003 Signal white0 / 0 / 0 / 0255 / 255 / 255
BlackRAL 9004 Signal black100 / 90 / 100 / 8014 / 19 / 19
Realization in Corel DESIGNER

With the color values from the table, corresponding object properties can be easily assigned to objects. Much more efficient than assigning properties to objects individually is to assign the properties to object styles and then assign the object styles to the objects. In this way, entire symbol libraries are possible by importing a style sheet (CDSS) with different color values or even different color spaces.