The Essential Guide to Creating Gradients in Web Design
In today’s competitive market, it’s essential to appeal to users with the help of good UX (user experience) and web design. With so many businesses to choose from, consumers have higher standards than in the past regarding functionality and aesthetics. In fact, according to Website Builder, more than 94% of users’ first impressions are related to a site’s visuals and design, and nearly 60% of people say they won’t recommend poorly designed websites to others.
Although a seemingly straightforward aspect of web design, color choice can play a crucial role in improving UX and design, and gradients may be the answer to making your color scheme work the way you need it to. You may assume that color gradients are a thing of the past. Although they were popular years ago, like many trends, gradient backgrounds have come back into style recently. If you look at the new designs out there or peruse the latest portfolio samples of professionals and web design agencies, you’ll see that gradients are returning more vital than ever.
That’s because background gradients make sense. Used correctly, angles can greatly enhance a website’s design. They can be more natural and appealing than a single, solid color, allowing for more flexibility and usability in your design, offering more seamless transitions, better readability, and greater visual depth.
To stay up to date with this latest fad, we’ve outlined the basics of how to make a gradient for your next website project below.
How to Make a Beautiful Gradient
To create a gradient, it’s essential to look at the color wheel. Look at tones close together, offering a natural transition from one to the other. Pick three shades that will flow well from one to the next to create a 3-stop gradient. If you already have two colors picked out for your branding, you’ll want to choose a third color for this approach. Then, to make the transition more seamless, you’ll want to play around with opacity and transparency to see what works best.
Rather than a 3-step gradient, you can also choose linear gradients. All you need to do is take the basic primary colors and adjust the RGB values to make them more similar until you find shades that work for the gradient you’re going for, providing a soft transition between the gradient colors.
Things to Avoid When Creating a Gradient Background
The main goal is to create a smooth transition with soft edges. If your colors are too starkly contrasting or need to combine better, you’ll need to rethink your approach.
Sometimes, an already established color scheme will lend itself poorly to a gradient, so you may have to adjust the shades or tone to make it work or accept that the gradient trend may not be for you. Refrain from the force the colors into a gradient just to fit the fad or make your website an eyesore for your customers.
You can try a quick test to ask whether the colors you’re trying to combine appear in nature. For example, red and green or orange and blue are rarely seen as gradients in the real world, only as solid colors. However, red to orange is often seen in nature, such as on sunsets.
Gradient Inspiration
If you want to create a gradient, start by finding some inspiration. As mentioned above, nature can be a great place to find some ideas for good color schemes. Go outside, look around at the transition between colors, or look up some nature photography online.
Sunsets are a particularly great source of inspiration for a natural gradient. You can find many different hues when looking at sunsets (or sunrises) that can be used as inspiration. You can also look online for gradients’ sites to see how they apply the technique to their branding and designs.
Conclusion
Color schemes are one of the first things your users will notice (although often subconsciously) when they come to your site and affect how they experience and interact with your brand. Using a natural and soft gradient can help to ease their eye from one point on a web page to the next and make for better readability and transitions between elements, which, if done correctly, will be more appealing and make users feel more welcome.
As a web designer — whether solitary or in a web design company — it is crucial for you to get a handle on this simple but highly effective technique. By creating the perfect gradient for your project, you will achieve a new level of connection with the site’s audience, which is a massive advantage in the eyes of your customers.
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