Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium muditha batagoda

Why are we so obsessed with these colors?

We live with colors every day in our life. We feel colors as an object that creates different emotions when seen. Colors are a function in our visual system. It is not actually there but we tend to see it anyway. That means that we construct the colors are in our brain, which makes them subjective in nature, not objective.

When come to design the colors play a powerful role. The colors change during the evolution of design and the ways of using the colors have been changed also.

In the middle of the year 2017, I have seen many applications incorporate shift from Google material design colors to gradient colors. Gradient colors were never a new trend. When I was working with .net applications everyone wanted to put gradient colors to the background. It was the coolest thing to do in those days. But now the gradient colors are making a comeback. I have seen the use of gradient on UI, Branding, and illustrations. Applications such as instagram and skype are the latest ones to fall into being cool by adding gradient colors to their applications.

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The gradients are most of the time created in nature. We see different objects and tend to believe that they are a single color. But when the sunlight hits the objects multiple colors are created. Gradients have the same principle. Gradients are created by two or more colors placed on a single object making the colors fade in between the colors. When making gradient colors the combination of the primary colors should be connective by each other. Two different colors can be distractive to the user and would affect the flow of the design. By making a proper combination of colors will make a unique, modern colors that are refreshing to the eye of the user.

Why again?

A few years ago the flat colors were the mint to the designers. We all used flat colors to do our designs. The colors were straight forward and colors had direct meaning when coming to the function they were being used to. But gradients are quite different to flat colors.

Most of the time the designers use gradient colors because of the trend. Trends change over the years passed and years to come. Most of the companies who changed their branding for the trend will change again after sometime moving on with the latest.

Why are they making a comeback these days?

This is the age of God particles and unicorns. We tend to bend all the rules in nature and make new things. Comeback of anything is possible these days.

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We think about objects in our life they are far more different than the ones are in the applications. The shapes we make in designs take a different shape in real life. Each of the objects has different colors and shape which are unique to it. Earth has it’s fair share of color. A red apple has red and dark red colors mixing up. The buildings, trees, flowers, grass has their own set of gradients that create unique beauty for them. By seeing them though-out our lifetime we are much more comfortable to see them on applications as well.

By being natural it’s easy to make colors with gradients. When designing a logo or an object in design using gradients, will also make new colors with it. By making new colors we make our design a one to be remembered. That is one of the strategies that are being used by instagram as well. Our mind tends to remember things that we do not usually see. When we see a color that we can not distinguish as a common color that we see everyday we tend to remember it more often. It’s the same feeling that when we eat a food that we had never had and gone to a place where we never been before and done something for the first time we tend to memorize the situation as well as the time of happening.

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We like to do cool and new things. When design we always try to make our designs close to humans. More comfortable and memorable the colors are more attracted the humans can be to the product. That’s why I think gradients are making a good comeback and going to be around in the designs until the next big thing comes along.

Is the gradient a new thing? was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Is the gradient a new thing?

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