- Hey folks and welcome along
to this latest video from myself.
Today we're going to be
talking about gradients
in logo design, and more specifically,
the potential issues
that you may come across
when using gradients.
So what we're going to do is
we're going to have a look
on the computer at some
of those potential issues,
but also some workarounds
that will help you
when it comes to reproducing your logo
where you may have a limited colour option
or a specific way of reproducing your logo
that doesn't allow for gradients.
So let's go over.
Okay, so here we are.
I've got three examples
of some stock logo designs
that use gradients, and they
use gradients in such a way
that they actually add
quite a lot to the design.
So on the first one we've
got this M shape here,
and we can see that we've got the gradient
on the green parts and on the purple parts
which gives that sense of depth
as if it's one piece of ribbon that goes
from start to finish creating the M shape.
In the middle we've got this
water droplet egg-type shape,
and we can see here
that the gradient gives
a real sense of depth, as
if there's been some pieces
carved out of it and gives it
that 3D three-dimensional look.
And then over here on
the right we've got this
U shape, but it kind of
almost has that effect
where it bends over, so it looks like
it could actually clip
on top of something.
So the gradient here is giving
it that 3D effect as well.
And that's one of the
common things that gradients
are used for, is to create
a three-dimensional look
to the logo design.
So what I'm going to do
is I'm going to go through
a few different things here
and show you the effect
of limiting colour will
have on the gradients.
So the first one that I want to look at
is how will removing the colour
and only having grey scale.
If you're only allowed to
use grey scale, what affect
would that have on the gradient shapes.
So we could see here, I'm going
to move this out of the way,
that it doesn't affect the 3D look
of the logos at all really.
It just takes away the colour.
So we still got that
depth to each of these.
Okay so that's grey scale.
What if we needed to do it in
one colour, one flat colour.
Let's take a look at how that would look.
So here we have the same logos.
I can highlight them here.
I can see that the shapes
are all still there.
But by only having one colour,
we lose all of that depth.
It doesn't have to be black.
We could choose any colour we want.
Let's just call let's
just say bright pink.
We still have that flatness there.
Now in the first two, we
still have the M shape.
The M's still visible.
In the other one we still have the egg
or the water droplet shape.
But over on this right-hand
side, we really lose
everything of that design.
You could still see it's a U,
but there's no presence to it anymore.
We've lost all of the
design elements really to it
by going flat colour.
So what can you do in that situation?
Well, one thing you could do is you could
convert to outlines and
just work with outlines.
So what would that look like?
Basically what you could
do is you could do this,
and you could create outline versions,
so that you've still got the shapes there.
You don't have the,
there's a slight kind of faux
3D, they are like a fake 3D,
especially if you've already
seen the full-color versions,
you'd be able to kind
of in your head remember
what it looked like in 3D, so
that the lines do help that.
But if you'd maybe not
seen the gradient versions,
you may struggle to kind
of think what they're like.
But it does allow this
one over here on the right
to look more like its
full-color gradient version
as opposed to where we
have it in the one colour
and it just loses absolutely everything.
So where would you probably
want to use the outline version?
Well, if you're maybe getting
something laser etched,
or maybe you're having some
vinyl cut, some flat vinyl.
You could, of course you
could have the vinyl printed.
So you could print that
gradient and have it cut.
But if you want to use
just sort of off-the-shelf
flat-color vinyl, then you could do that.
Also laser etching could
work there as well.
If you want to have something laser etched
you could do that or maybe embroidery.
You can do some gradient with embroidery.
It's not the best, and that's because
you have a limited colour pallette,
and I want to go over that next.
And what we need to do is
we need to switch over to Photoshop.
Let me show what happens when you have
a limited number of colours.
And I don't just mean
limited as in one colour
like we looked at earlier,
but let's just say
you only have 32-color pallette or 16,
how does that affect your gradient logo?
So one quick way to do that in Photoshop
is to use save-for-web option.
So right now we won't save as a PNG file.
And right now we have 256 colours.
So it's looking pretty good.
I can just make out some
slight banding on the gradients
but it's really not noticeable.
I think most people wouldn't see that.
What happens though if we
go down to 128 colours?
You can see now that the
banding is really starting
to come into play.
And that would come into play if you are
saving your images for
web, and you really want to
optimise your images so that they're
the smallest size possible.
By optimising you tend
to be taking colours out
and that will result in banding
as you see here on screen.
So what we can do is we
can actually in Photoshop
we can play around with
some of the presets.
And if we add a diffusion,
we can get rid of that
banding a little bit.
We could try pattern.
Pattern layer has got rid
of a lot of the banding
and we're still only at 128 colours
so that's worked really well.
We could try noise and
noise is working out well.
There is also, we're quite lucky on 128.
But what if we go down to 64?
At 64 and noise you can
start to see it's really
getting a bit grainy.
Let's go down to 32.
32 we can see here that it's
really not looking the best,
to no dither at all,
if we get into some
major, major banding here,
I actually quite, I
quite like that effect,
but it's not what we're
looking for when you compare it
to how the logo should look.
So as you get down to sort
of 16, get down to eight,
you really start to lose
those gradients altogether.
So as you can see, with
gradients you really
need to think whether
your logo A, needs to
have that gradient in the first place,
or can you do a design or create a design
that doesn't rely on a gradient for depth
or any special effects.
So bear that in mind if you're designing
your logo yourself if you're a designer,
or if you're a business
owner watching this video
and you're thinking about
having a logo with a gradient,
you really need to
discuss it quite closely
with your designer to
make sure that your logo
is still adaptable, 'cause
it's one of the core things
that a logo has to be.
It has to be adaptable
and suitable for uses
in all sorts of places from single colour
through to full colour.
Well there you have it.
There are some pros and cons to
having gradients in your logo.
This will help you make a clear decision
on whether you would like
to include a gradient
in your next logo design,
or you'd like to maybe
play it a bit safer and just
work with some flat colour.
I hope you found it useful.
If you have, please
subscribe to my channel.
Give this video a like and don't forget
to press that bell icon,
and you'll be notified
whenever I release a new video.
So until I see you next
time, stay creative folks.
