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The U.S. Government Has Their Own Official Color System

It's like Pantone for bureaucrats

By Rain Noe - May 27, 2015

in Visual Communication

Last week a couple of contractors in a cherry picker repainted the orangeish-yellow support brackets for the Walk/Don't Walk signs on my corner:

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It never occurred to me that those colors are regulated by the government, but of course they are. And as the Washington Post reports, our government doesn't mess with Pantone; instead they've got their own internal system, sexily named Federal Standard 595C - Colors Used in Government Procurement.

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The government started trying to regulate colors around World War I--you can read a lengthy history on the process here--and today the hues of everything from aircraft carriers to highway signs to post office mailboxes all boil down to just 650 color chips.

11120 OSHA Safety Red

12243 DoT Highway Orange

13415 School Bus Yellow

14066 DoT Highway Green

15095 Post Office Light Blue

20059 Forest Service Sign Standard Brown

You can view all of the chips here, but only some of the colors are listed with names, and some of those names are unmistakably American in style--like "15450 Air Superiority Blue." For real.

For descriptions of what colors belong to what objects, as we've listed in the six samples above, you'll have to click here. At that latter link you can also order physical chips, and boy, going after government contracts ain't cheap--they cost 50 freaking dollars per chip, or you can order the whole set for $1,250.

But, if you're just creating some in-computer renderings and trying to get the exact shade of green the Department of Transportation uses on their highway signs, you can just hit the link above and use Photoshop's handy eyedropper tool.

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Matt Fromthestone

5 years ago

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Superseded by Aerospace Material Specification Standard 595
"Colors Used in U.S. Government Procurement"
For 295$ you can buy the color book
http://ams-std-595-color.com/

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Scott Larsen

7 years ago

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The full set is now: Price: $4,995.00

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Hyper Ordinary

9 years ago

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In a similar vein, the much used RAL standard is a German national standard defined pre WW2 (for the now called "Classic" library) and there are, I believe, 3 British Colour Standard libraries too.

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Mark Thomas

9 years ago

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Fortunately, we have States Rights, and those Walk signs don't have to conform to Federal Standard 595C -- just NY State Department of Transportation standards ;-)

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Randy Willoughby

9 years ago

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People who are into scale military models know about the Federal Standard paint specs. By the way, Air Superiority Blue was designed as a low visibility sky camouflage color for U.S. combat aircraft, first applied to the F-15 in the '70s.

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