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NCS, the Natural Colour System

To easily find the NCS notation of a certain colour, you can use a colour chart or an online tool. On this page, you'll also read some more about the Natural Colour System.

How to find the perfect NCS colour

This beautiful online tool allows you to navigate through the NCS colour spectrum. Underneath the colour you select, you can see how it's built up. You can read more about how NCS colours are defined a bit further on this page.

Click here for the online NCS colour tool

Another easy and effortless way to pick out an NCS colour is through an NCS colour chart. It goes without saying we have some of those available for you in our webshop, to buy or to rent, if you only need it for a short period of time.

Sigma

RENT Colour System NCS C21.3 Colour Fan

Sigma

Colour System C21.3 Colour Fan - NCS +RAL

NCS = Natural Colour System

NCS, or the Natural Colour System, is used to describe a colour. It uses numerical codes, which we call NCS notations, e.g. NCS S 1080-Y70R, to accurately render the composition of a colour. There are 1950 standardised NCS colour notations.

NCS colours are built up by three values or parameters:

blackness, to determine the intensity
chromaticness, to determine the colour scope
and whiteness, which is measured as a percentage/balance between two primary colours: yellow and red; red and blue; blue and green; green and yellow.

The latter proportion determines the exact shade of the colour.

For example: S 1070-Y10R

NCS notation S 1070-Y10R describes a colour of the standardised collection (S), which lies in the spectrum between yellow (Y) and red (R) with:

10% perception of red (and therefore 90% yellow)
10% blackness
70% chromaticness

So, this colour would be a rather spiritful yellow.

Found it!

Alright, let's say this spiritful yellow is totally your colour... Then you'll probably want to see what it looks like in your interior. You could see that by using these mini cans of paint from Sigma and Trimetal. When ordering your tester can, just fill out the NCS notation you found here, and we'll send you that gorgeous colour!