Learn the NCS System®
Describe any imaginable surface colour with NCS. Learn the NCS System and enjoy the smartness of colour.
What is NCS?
NCS – Natural Colour System® is rooted in science, reflecting how our eyes perceive colours. Using NCS Notations or codes, you can describe colour on any surface, whether it's fabric, paint or packaging.
What sets NCS apart?
It’s become the global go-to standard for defining and communicating colours, ensuring the highest quality and accurate colour communication.
Why choose NCS?
Imagine you can accurately describe colours across industries, from interior design to car manufacturing and beyond. NCS understands colour just as our eyes do. It translates colour vision into a systematic language, enabling accurate colour communication and the right colour decisions.
NCS is for you
Ranging from architects shaping spaces, designers crafting projects, colour professionals, retailers adding texture or industries manufacturing, NCS ensures colour with precision.
colour harmonies
Get colour confidence with NCS
The possibilities of colour harmonies and combinations open up with the colour language of NCS. On this page, you will learn how to use the NCS System to amplify your colour choices and creation of colour palettes.
The NCS Natural Colour System®
3 simple steps to identify any colour.
1. Find the colour hue: -R20B
2. Find the nuance: 1040
3. Complete the NCS Notation
"To make life easy for designers, we use the NCS System, creating our own colour collection that all fit together in perfect harmony. This enables colourful matches within entire interior concepts and the ability to create bespoke solutions for clients.”
– Torben Hansen, Founder & Director Schotten & Hansen
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 Colour Circle
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 neutral. 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.
NCS Education
Colour Academy
Enrich your understanding of colour by joining our Colour Academy courses. Tailored exclusively for architects, interior designers, product designers and professional colour advisers, these courses deepen your mastery of colour communication.
NCS Quick Course
Take our free Quick Course to learn the NCS System in 20 minutes.
