Learn the NCS System
Describe any imaginable surface colour with NCS. Learn the NCS System and enjoy the smartness of colour.
How the NCS System Works
Just as language has syntax and music its own note system, colour has its own distinct structure that forms the notation vocabulary of NCS.
A notation represents a specific colour percept out of the millions of surface colours that we can see and describes the colour visually. It is not depending on limitations caused by pigments, light rays or nerve signals that have given rise to this perception. An NCS Notation is constructed using three properties that visually describe a colour; hue and nuance (blackness and chromaticness).
Hue
.
Nuance
An Example
FIVE ESSENTIAL PARTS
Unpacking the NCS System
Elementary Colours
Six elementary colours are perceived as “pure” and hold the key to the 10 million colours our eyes can detect. A pure yellow for instance does not include green or red, just as a pure blue contains no red or green.
These six colours forms the foundation of the NCS codes which will make it possible to describe any of the 10 million colours that forms our world.
NCS Colour Space
Imagine colours in a three-dimensional (3D) space. White and black are on a vertical axis while the other four colours are plotted in a circle around it. This allows colours to be identified and coded with NCS Notations for greater accuracy than 2D.
NCS Circles
As one of the three-dimensions in the colour space, the NCS Colour Circle cuts across horizontally through the centre. It describes the hue in relation to one or two of the four elementary colours.
NCS Colour Triangle
As a vertical dimension of the colour space, the NCS Colour Triangle defines each of the different hue’s nuance.
NEUTRAL COLOURS: All pure grey nuance are concidered neautral. They run along the back of the triangle and lack a hue. They are coded with N as neutral.
NCS Notation
The colour notation or code NCS S 1040-R20B has the nuance 1040, i.e. 10% in blackness and 40% in chromaticness. The hue, R20B is a red (R) with 20% blue (B) in it.
Click here for a complete list of NCS Literature References.
