May 20, 2016

Gradient Examples

Filed under: Main — Tags: — admin @ 12:01 am

On Wednesday’s blog post, I wrote about gradient fill options in Word. They apply an interesting effect to shapes and they’re fun to play with. What really helps, however, are examples that show how the gradients can be applied and what they look like.

The first example is shown in Figure 1. It’s a radial gradient, which means the patterns originate from a center point.

Figure 1. Radial gradient example.

Figure 1. Radial gradient example.

Radial is chosen from the Type menu, illustrated in Figure 1. The Direction menu sets the center of the radius. In Figure 1, I set the center to the middle of the rectangle.

Three gradient stops set the colors. After clicking a stop, choose the color from the Color button. I chose white, yellow, and blue to create the sun effect shown in the shape.

Figure 2 illustrates a rectangular type of gradient.

Figure 2. A rectangular gradient creates a beveled effect.

Figure 2. A rectangular gradient creates a beveled effect.

With the rectangular gradient centered (refer to Figure 2), the effect is that the rectangle features a three-dimensional or beveled edge.

In Figure 3, you see a gradient applied as the fill color for some text. This effect works best when the text is formatted with a large decorative font, such as Cooper Black shown in the figure.

Figure 3. A linear gradient applied as a text fill.

Figure 3. A linear gradient applied as a text fill.

Linear is pretty much the standard type of gradient, though you can set how the line falls and in which direction. Preset directions are found on the Directions button. You can also adjust the angle by using the Angle gizmo.

These are just a handful of examples. For more inspiration, choose a preset gradient from the Preset Gradients menu, then modify the results. When you mess with the controls in the Format Shape (or Format Text Effects) pane, you get an idea of what’s possible.

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