By Howard Pinsky
Angular gradients, inner shadows, and outline strokes have finally arrived. Here we are in Adobe XD with some very over-the-top skeuomorphic designs I've been experimenting with, and all three of these features will certainly help add to the beauty of these elements; or obnoxiousness if you're not into this style.
Starting off with angular gradients, I have a few silver dials at the top and have also started working on a bronze version. The selected ellipse currently has a radial gradient applied, but to really heighten the chrome look, let's switch it over to angular.
I can now go through and start making changes, and you'll really start to see the benefits of angular gradients, as you continue to add stops, either within the Color Picker or directly on canvas. And alternating light and dark tones will help achieve a nice shiny look. That's looking pretty good and it nicely interacts with the textures and blend modes I have above it. I can now duplicate this dial over, and since I'm working with components, if I need to tweak the styling, editing the main will push the changes to all instances.
Next up: inner shadows. Behind these dials, I've created a surface consisting of two layers, one for the base color and one for the texture, which has the blend mode set to soft light, so that it matches nicely with the layers behind it.
Overall, it looks okay, but I'd love to add some additional depth. Selecting the base layer I'm going to activate an inner shadow from the Properties Inspector. And since I'm looking for a nice highlight at the top of this shape, I'll set the color to a light red to match the tone of this element. And if necessary, the opacity can be increased or decreased as well.
Now since I want a nice cushion to this shape, I'll bump up the Y position to around 5 maybe slightly on the X, so that it grazes of the left side of the shape. Then I'll blur it a touch, so it's a little bit softer. Beautiful.
I can also add an inner shadow on layers with blend modes, like the one I'm using for the texture. Here, I'll set the color of the inner shadow quite dark, then bring the Y position into the negatives, so that we're left with a nice ridge at the bottom. Then, similar to the previous shape. I'll blur the shadow slightly. And with just two new shadows, we've added a whole new level of depth to our design.
It's good to note that inner shadows don't require a fill on their layers. There may be instances where you'd like a shadow or highlight that covers several shapes. So placing a layer above them all, you can disable the fill and then turn on and tweak the inner shadow. And if you'd like it to interact with the layers below, blend modes can be used as well.
Finally, let's quickly look at outline stroke. If you're an Illustrator user you may be aware of this functionality, but in short, this will allow you to convert border-based objects like this power icon into solid shapes. And it can be done under the Object > Path menu, or with the Command or Control+Alt or Option +O shortcut.
This is often used when designing elements that may require more in-depth styling. It can be a quick way to create a stroke version of a solid icon, and many designers outline their strokes before handing off assets to developers.
And that's a look at angular gradients, inner shadows, and outline strokes. I'll be diving deeper into these in future videos so be sure to subscribe and follow me on Twitter. Thanks for watching everyone and I'll see you all next time.
Take your artwork to the next level, editing assets directly on the design canvas. Learn how to add angular gradients, inner shadows, and outline strokes to your designs. In this tutorial, you’ll create a chrome look with an angular gradient and see how to add stops to the gradient. For a chrome effect, alternating light and dark tones help create a shiny look. Try applying an inner shadow and experiment with adding blend modes, like Soft Light, to mesh with the layers behind it. Use outline strokes to create a stroke version of a solid icon. Outline strokes convert border-based objects into solid shapes.
