Throwing Some Shade (or What’s My Gradient?)

A particular tool in Indesign that offers an endless array of possibilities is the Gradient Tool. So, in keeping with the Master Pages post from last week, we’re going to continue with a basic look at the Gradient Tool and how to most effectively use it.

Begin by opening a new document. Any dimensions will work, but I suggest Letter size for ease.

The New Gradient Swatch or Gradient Options Palette

As with all things Indesign, there are many different ways to create palettes. We’re going to go through the method that actually provides the most control over the gradient and the its usage.

To access a New Gradient Swatch, go to your Swatches palette and click on the options (four horizontal lines) at the top right and select New Gradient Swatch. This will bring up the Gradient Options palette. Let’s do a quick rundown on what’s included here.

1. Swatch Name — Name the Gradient whatever your little heart desires, but remember someone else may use your file at some point!
2. Type — There are two types, Linear or Radial. One is, well, linear; graduating from color to color in a directional (or linear) manner. The other radiates from a central point outward. You’d almost think that the labels were selected intentionally.
3. Stop Color — This dropdown lists the color environments that your color stops are chosen from (LAB, RGB, CMYK, and Swatches). The most convenient from a consistency standpoint is selecting Swatches since those are the colors you are already using in your piece. However, if you want to create a custom color to us in your gradient, then have at it!
4. Gradient Ramp — This is the real meat-and-potatoes of the gradient, the colors and spacing being used for your gradient. The boxes underneath the line are the Color Stops that are selected for your gradient (you can have as many as you want!) and the placement in the gradient mix. The diamond above the line is the for placing the Midpoint between colors (where they are both at 50%). Don’t worry, we’ll dig into that later in the post.
5. Location — When you have either a Color Stop or Midpoint selected, the locations value shows you numerically (based on percentage) where they are placed. Again, we’ll cover this later.

The Gradient Palette

A second palette that you can use once your gradient is created (or if you’re creating one from scratch without a Swatch) is the Gradient Palette. This palette contains many of the same information points as the Gradient Swatch palette, but with a few helpful additions. I tried to retain the same letter for the same tool, where possible. To access the Gradient Palette, go to Window>Color>Gradient.

1. Angle — This affects the angle that the gradient is aligned to. A gradient moving straight across horizontally is 0° or 180°. A gradient that is vertically straight up and down is 90° or -90°.
2. Type — Same as the Gradient Options palette above. Your two options here are Linear or Radial.
3. Reverse — Flips the direction of the gradient. If you original gradient is red, white, blue, then clicking the Reverse button will make it blue, white, red. Changing the Angle field from 0° to 180° does the same thing.
4. Gradient Ramp — This is the same as the Gradient Options palette above.
5. Location — This is also the same as the Gradient Options palette above.

These two palettes provide the essential tools to using gradients within InDesign.

One thing to keep in mind, if you have set up a Gradient Swatch, any changes made to that affect all elements that use that swatch.

Let’s take a look at how to use the Gradient Swatches.

Creating A Gradient Swatch

First we want to make a New Gradient Swatch to play with. In your Swatches Palette, as we had stated at the beginning of this post, you can click in the palette options at the top right (four horizontal lines) and select New Gradient Swatch. PRO-TIP: If you have an existing gradient swatch, you can double-click on it and that will also bring up the Gradient Options Palette for that particular swatch.

In the Swatch Name field, name the Gradient Swatch “Red to Blue”.

Keep the Type as Linear.

Go down to the Gradient Ramp and click on the white box on the left underneath the line. Once that’s selected, you can go up to the Stop Color and select CMYK from the dropdown. In the color fields below, type in the following values (Cyan:15, Magenta:100, Yellow:100, Black:0), and in the Location box, type 10.

Now, click on the black box on the right underneath the line. Once that’s selected, you can go up to the Stop Color and select CMYK from the dropdown. In the color fields below, type in the following values (Cyan:100, Magenta:0, Yellow:0, Black:0), and in the Location box, type 90.

We’re going to add another Color Stop. Place your mouse under the Color Ramp bar and click once. That will place an additional Color Stop. Now, you can go up to the Stop Color and select CMYK from the dropdown. In the color fields below, type in the following values (Cyan:0, Magenta:0, Yellow:0, Black:0), and in the Location box, type 55.

We need to adjust the Midpoints now (those are placed above the Color Ramp. Select the one on the left and enter 45 in the Location box, then select the Midpoint on the right and enter 65 in the location box.

Click OK to close the dialogue box with those settings. That will create the Gradient swatch in your Swatches palette.

After creating a gradient swatch, we need somewhere to apply it. From the Toolbar, click and hold on the Rectangle Frame Tool, then select the Ellipse Frame Tool (not for any particular reason, I just think it’s a fun shape). Click and drag within your document to make a good-sized ellipse (hold down shift and drag, if you prefer a circle).

Now comes the fun part. With your ellipse selected and your Fill selected (top left of the Swatches palette), click on the gradient that you just created. Your ellipse (or circle if irregular shapes unsettle you) should now be filled with the gradient that you created.

For the last step, go to the Gradients palette and in the Angle box, enter -45ª and press… well, Enter. For kicks, try clicking on the Reverse button to see what that will do.

At the end, this is what you should end up with…

There’s obviously much, much more that we could do to play with this further, but we’ll save that for another post. If there are any specific questions that you have or if you would like to see additional posts covering more on gradients, just let us know. We’re happy to oblige!