Ben
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Post by Ben on Jan 14, 2007 13:15:35 GMT
Does anyone by chance know what these colours are in RGB or CYMB or Hex etc.? Underground Train Red + Cream Cerulean Blue (as applied to interiors) Bus Red The red and blue of the current livery I have a table somwhere of the line colours in RGB if anyone is interested; I'm not sure if the red and the blue are the same in the current livery as the picc/central line colours. Many Thanks  |
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Chris M
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Post by Chris M on Jan 14, 2007 13:28:49 GMT
There is a page on the TfL website somewhere (I'll try and find it again shortly) that gives details of all the colours they use in RGB, CMYK, Pantone, etc.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2007 14:30:56 GMT
The colour codes used to colourise the forum names on here are the ones used as provided by TfL.
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Chris M
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Post by Chris M on Jan 14, 2007 15:15:38 GMT
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Ben
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Post by Ben on Jan 14, 2007 18:39:49 GMT
Now that is an extreamly interesting page. All of the colours without exception are different to the ones used in making the London Underground/NR connections map.
The cream I was reffering to might not actually be something computerised. Its the colour that window surrounds were painted on trains prior to the mid 1950's. Also the file makes no mention of train red or bus red.
Thankyou though Chris; its definately given me something to ponder!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2007 19:48:19 GMT
Train red (doors) I presume? If so it's the red used on the roundel.
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Phil
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Post by Phil on Jan 14, 2007 23:21:43 GMT
Now that is an extreamly interesting page. All of the colours without exception are different to the ones used in making the London Underground/NR connections map. That could well be because, as you see from that link, the colours used for print are specified different from those used for VDU. |
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Ben
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Post by Ben on Jan 14, 2007 23:58:21 GMT
Ahh, sorry I didnt explain myself there properly! I downloaded the map in .pdf format a while back. The colours used in the file aren't the same as the ones given in that document, which seems odd if both are for VDU's...
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Post by cetacean on Jan 15, 2007 1:34:01 GMT
That could well be because, as you see from that link, the colours used for print are specified different from those used for VDU. I think the real problem is the standards PDF appears to be completely made up. Have a look at the "Corporate Red" page and none of the different logos are the same as either each other or the swatches, or the RGB values it says they are. I'd say applying a pipette tool to either the map or the website is the best way to get reasonably accurate colours. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2007 8:06:40 GMT
I think the real problem is the standards PDF appears to be completely made up. Have a look at the "Corporate Red" page and none of the different logos are the same as either each other or the swatches, or the RGB values it says they are. It's worth pointing out that computers in general are bad with colours... all to do with colour profiles, the way you have your monitor set up, ambient lighting and such. On the corporate red page, the 'central line', 'underground' and 'buses' colours are near enough to be identical, but the 'no-smoking' widget is somewhat more blue... which is approximately what happens when I create graphics at home (on my £350+ monitor+colorsync rig) and add them into pre-existing stuff at work (£80 monitor, no colorsync). Just checked the tube map I have here against my pantone swatches ... looks 485U to me -jdp |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2007 9:15:55 GMT
Train red (doors) I presume? If so it's the red used on the roundel. No. "Train red" was the body colour of Underground rolling stock before the fad for unpainted aluminium. It was different from "bus red", which was the colour used on Central Buses. The trains had window surrounds painted cream, and the buses had a cream band between decks. These were probably notionally the same colour, but would vary as they were made up by the painters tipping some pigment into white paint. There is not much point in getting too precious about paint colours before around 1960, as most of them were mixed by eye: if the red looked right to the foreman painter, it was put on the train. Or bus. |
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Post by version3point1 on Jan 15, 2007 18:54:37 GMT
There is not much point in getting too precious about paint colours before around 1960, as most of them were mixed by eye: if the red looked right to the foreman painter, it was put on the train. I'll have to say; that's quite a shame. Whilst TfL are all set on having set design standards now, there should've been a design standard set on colours years ago. I agree with cetacean. It's all very well having design standards and colours, but implementing them is a different story. Regardless of whether or not your VDU is calibrated, the only consistency in colours you ever get on the Tube these days is in printed publications. What really hacks me off these days is current station refurbishment works. At the risk of sounding a bit too picky, older roundels that you find on the Tube have a nice cherry red to them, whereas the roundels you get now are a bit lighter. Metronet have certainly got it all wrong IMHO. Go up to any roundel on a Metronet refurbed station with a set of Pantone swatches and you'll find that they're not even up to set design standards. So much for consistency. But with implementing a corporate image comes the risk of being constrained to those standards within design. People across the world have been inspired by the designs, colours and textures from the Underground over the yeras. I'm interested in seeing how it'll all pan out in the future. |
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Post by Tubeboy on Jan 15, 2007 19:36:08 GMT
You, not picky?
[Falls off chair laughing]
Sorry dear! ;D
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2007 22:13:08 GMT
There is not much point in getting too precious about paint colours before around 1960, as most of them were mixed by eye: if the red looked right to the foreman painter, it was put on the train. I'll have to say; that's quite a shame. Whilst TfL are all set on having set design standards now, there should've been a design standard set on colours years ago. There were design standards, but the application of them was left to the painters. I don't have details for LT, but I have looked into the colours used by GWR, which was probably typical of large transport organisations. It seems that engine green and coach brown were bought in coloured by the paint manufacturers. However, the two shades of "stone" used on buildings were made by the painters tipping oxide colouring into white paint. The grey of freight stock was made by tipping white paint into black paint. The painters were issued with colour sample cards and were supposed to match against them. But this depended on the condition of the sample cards, and the skill (and interest) of the painters in getting an exact match. And GWR coach "cream" was actually white paint covered with old-fashioned varnish. It started out almost white, and as the varnish weathered it became almost pale brown. Which raises the question of weathering and the fading of all paints. On lines running east-west, where carriages did not get turned, by the time a repaint was due the southern side of the carriages would be noticeably lighter in colour than the northern side. The old Metropolitan T stock was a very strange shade of light brown by the time it was withdrawn to make way for A stock. And the weathering of the unpainted A stock is a modeller's nightmare! |
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Chris M
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Post by Chris M on Jan 15, 2007 22:32:58 GMT
Island Line have painted two of their ex-LU units into the red livery, you could try getting in contact with them to see what shade they used.
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Ben
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Post by Ben on Jan 15, 2007 23:21:17 GMT
Regardless of whether or not your VDU is calibrated, the only consistency in colours you ever get on the Tube these days is in printed publications. Thats not even true though....the district line printed in this seasons tube map is lighter than before. As to VDU calibration, colours will appear differently on every screen yes, but surely if the colour has the same digital value, then, digitally, it will be the same colour regardless of how it appears? Doing a pipette tool on page 3 of the colour standards document (not as exciting as some other publications page 3  ) I can confirm with Cetacean that the swatches and no smoking sign are (in RGB) 237.34.51 and the roundles are 239.67.41 and NOTHING is in the proclaimed swatch colour of 223.0.44! This is taken direct from Adobe Illustrator, not a printscreen. Can anyone else confirm these values? I do digress though; Bus red, train red and that cream are all still used by various bodies. The bus red and cream on the heritage RM's, and the train red on the 1938ts, both mainline and LT museum. Surely red tape would cause the colours to be recorded nowadays? I didnt think it was still a couple of men with a pot, a stick, and several vats of primary colours? |
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Post by cetacean on Jan 16, 2007 0:10:54 GMT
Just checked the tube map I have here against my pantone swatches ... looks 485U to me Yeah, I can imagine the Pantone values are hard to get wrong. It's the conversions to everything else and the colour of the swatches that are the issue. As to VDU calibration, colours will appear differently on every screen yes, but surely if the colour has the same digital value, then, digitally, it will be the same colour regardless of how it appears? That's a very dodgy topic. There are an infinite number of RGB colour spaces, so a colour in one space would have slightly different numbers than the same colour in another space, and obiously everything has to be normalised into one space before its sent to the screen. It's not obvious what the pipette is actually measuring. (That the TfL doc doesn't specify a colour space for its RGB values is the first thing that should set off alarm bells) |
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Chris M
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Post by Chris M on Jan 16, 2007 0:13:53 GMT
I have two copies of the 01/07 pocket map in front of me, on one of them (picked up at Paddington on the 2nd of January) all the colours are slightly brighter than on the 06/06 and 06/05 editions. The other 01/07 (picked up on Wednesday, I can't remember which station) appears ever so slightly brighter than the earlier editions but not as much so as the first one I picked up. I'm looking with tired eyes under artificial light though so it is by no means scientific.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 16, 2007 7:20:46 GMT
There were design standards, but the application of them was left to the painters. <snip> Sounds much like the rule-of-thumb behind Stroudley's "Improved engine green" (which was, in fact, yellow)... As to VDU calibration, colours will appear differently on every screen yes, but surely if the colour has the same digital value, then, digitally, it will be the same colour regardless of how it appears? Doing a pipette tool on page 3 of the colour standards document (not as exciting as some other publications page 3 ) I can confirm with Cetacean that the swatches and no smoking sign are (in RGB) 237.34.51 and the roundles are 239.67.41 and NOTHING is in the proclaimed swatch colour of 223.0.44! This is taken direct from Adobe Illustrator, not a printscreen. Can anyone else confirm these values? As cetacean says, the whole thing of the way colours are displayed/handled on monitors is completely dodgy. If Illustrator is anything like Photoshop, the first thing you're asked when you open the document is "this document was created using a different colour space. What do you want to do?". Depending on which of the three options you choose, PS will either actually alter the colours so that they appear to be the same against your new profile; overlay the display window with a new profile that makes the colours appear to be the same but don't actually change things*; or do absolutely nothing and just display the colour values in the data, plus any adjustments specified by your current colour profile. The differences between either of the first two and the last can be quite large. (That the TfL doc doesn't specify a colour space for its RGB values is the first thing that should set off alarm bells) I would doubt you'd ever really find a serious design standards doc that specified colour spaces/profiles for its RGB values, because at the end of the day, RGB is only ever going to be a rough guideline that's fantastic for saying "blue" and "yellow" in a way that few people would argue (those with colour blindness not included in this statement, for obvious reasons), but more than that ... nope. See, you've got colour calibration issues, phosphors in CRTs decay, TFT backlights are not created equal ... and when it all comes down to it, RGB cannot represent every colour of visible light anyways - some parts of the spectrum require negative amounts of blue (at least, I think it's blue - uni-level optical physics was a long time ago), which is difficult to do... At which point you use the value in the standards document and accept that it's going to look slightly different to everyone. As Anne says, the only time you're going to get true colour matching is when you're printing and using a known spot-colour system (PANTONE being the most common by far). Colour is fun! -jdp * this in itself makes PS kinda useful when dealing with multiple displays, but my copy of PS7 doesn't quite get it quite right yet... |
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) I can confirm with Cetacean that the swatches and no smoking sign are (in RGB) 237.34.51
