An Introduction to 'In Design'

Alan Rolfe, University of West London, Ealing, London

Colour and Gradients

Introduction

The colour controls in In Design can be used to alter the colours in any element created in In Design itself (frames, boxes, lines etc.) or in any text. Colour can be applied to the body of the element (this is called the 'fill') or to the outline (called the 'stroke'). In the case of text, note that 'stroke' refers to the outline of the letters, e.g. a letter with a black fill and a red stroke looks like this:

The Colour and Swatch palettes

There are two palettes which are used to apply colour: the colour (or 'color') palette and the swatch palette, both available from the 'Window' menu. You can also use the controls at the bottom of the toolbox.

The swatch palette is a collection of single colours which you can easily apply to any object. To begin with, on a new document, you will just have a few basic colours:

But any new colours you 'create' can be added to this swatch list. This means you can easily ensure that objects in different parts of the document are exactly the same colour. The swatch list is saved with the document.

The colour palette may look like this when the document is first opened:

Click on the small arrow at the top right and select a colour model (Lab, RGB or CMYK). This gives you:

The two small squares at the top represent 'fill' and 'stroke'. If you are using the text tool the palette looks slightly different:

To apply a colour to an object

First select the object with the selection tool . Then, in the colour palette, choose whether you want to alter the fill or stroke colour. Then do one of the following:

• Pick a colour from the colour bar in the colour palette.
• Adjust the sliders in the colour palette to give you the colour you want.
• Pick a colour from the swatches palette.
• Use the eye-dropper tool to pick a colour from another object in the document.

In each case the fill or stroke of the selected object will change immediately to the colour you selected.

To add this colour to the swatches palette (if it isn't already there) click again on the small arrow at the top right of the colour palette and choose 'Add to swatches'.

Name your colours

In the swatches palette, double-click on any swatch to bring up the swatches options dialog box:

If you untick the 'Name with Colour Value' box, you can enter a name for that swatch. Again, this will be saved with the document.

Using gradients

If a plain colour is not to your taste, you can apply a gradient fill to an object (or even a gradient stroke).

Open the gradient palette (Window > Gradient):

Select an object, and click on virtually any item in the gradient palette to apply the gradient to the object. (If you can't see any difference, it may be that you're applying the gradient to the stroke rather than the fill. Use the toolbox or the colour palette to select the fill instead.)

The gradient palette now looks like this:

The following adjustments can be made:

• Against 'Type' you can choose Linear or Radial.
• 'Reverse' allows you to change left/right to right/left or inner/outer to /outer/inner.
• 'Angle' (linear only) allows you to set the angle of the gradient.
• The gradient bar underneath allows a variety of detailed adjustments:
  
  
  • The top slider adjusts the mid-point of the gradient.
  • The two 'paint pots' underneath the bar (actually called 'color stops') set the start and end colours of the gradient. Click on one to select it, then change to the colour palette to choose a colour.
  • Click underneath the bar to add more colour stops. You can set the colour of these as above, or move them left and right as required. Drag a colour stop down off the bar to remove it. In this way you can create complex gradients like this:

Gradients can be saved in the swatches palette in the same way as custom colours (see above).

The gradient tool

Another way of applying a gradient is by using the gradient tool.

Set up a gradient in the gradient palette or select one from the swatches palette. Then use the gradient tool to click-and-drag over an object to apply it. In this way you can control where the gradient begins and ends, and the angle (for a linear gradient).

Maintained by Alan Rolfe

© Copyright UWL 2011

Last updated July 6, 2011