The Gradiently Forge: crafting a Mark control by control

The Gradiently Forge is the editor where Marks are made: living gradient and material backgrounds with a palette, stacked materials, light, grain, motion, particles, typefaces and a reaction to words. It is laid out as a rail of ten sections on the left, the controls for the current section beside it, and a large live stage. Every change shows on the stage at once, and every change to your draft saves as you go.

This is a tour of each section in order. If you would rather start from words, describe a Mark in a sentence covers the AI route, and making your own gradient covers publishing.

The ten sections of the Forge

The rail runs top to bottom in the order a Mark is usually built. Click a section, or step through with the up and down arrow keys. A dot marks each section you have changed since opening the Mark.

Start and Material: choosing what it is made of

Start is for beginnings: type a description and the AI makes it, choose Surprise me for a whole new Mark (with five more if the first doesn't land), open a family of materials, or drop in a photo or logo and let the Mark take its colours. Undo always brings back what you had.

Material is the library of what a Mark can be made of. Search by name, mood or use, such as marble, calm or metal, or browse by family. Rest on a material to preview it on the stage and click to apply it. Each material also has several looks, tuned starting points you can pick before adjusting by hand.

Colour: palette, roles and harmonies

A Mark holds up to eight colours. Each layer paints with four roles, Shadow, Body, Light and Highlight, and each role takes one palette colour. Rest on a colour to see where it lands. Harmonies grows a new palette from any one colour using classic relationships, and From an image takes a palette from a photo or logo.

The Colour section also sets how words look on this Mark: Auto, where each line picks light or dark from what is behind it, or always light, or always dark. A readout shows the contrast ratio, and 4.5 : 1 or more reads well. Colour contrast explains why that number matters.

Layers, Light and Motion

Layers stacks up to three materials: a base at the bottom and up to two above it. Each layer has dials for Size, Bend, Detail, Brightness and Movement, a Strength, and a way of mixing with what is below: Normal covers it, Light only adds glow, Shade only darkens, Contrast deepens darks and lifts lights, and Soft is a gentle Contrast. Solo a layer to tune it alone, or hide it while you look.

Light moves the whole Mark together: brightness, a fine film grain, and the arrangement, which is where the large forms and fine texture fall. Drag across the arrangement square to move through them, jump somewhere new at random, and save up to eight arrangements you like. Motion sets the pace, from Still through Slow, Easy and Lively to Quick, with Speed, Drift and how much each layer takes part.

Square post

1080 × 1080

Portrait post

1080 × 1350

Story

1080 × 1920

X header

1500 × 500

YouTube thumbnail

1280 × 720

Desktop 16:9

1920 × 1080

Particles, Type and Reaction

Particles adds an optional dust of light drifting over the Mark in its own colours. Pick a style, Dust, Stars, Mist, Swarm, Silk or Embers, then fine tune Amount, Size, Glow, Current, how far they part around words and how long they keep moving after a push. Type sets the two faces every design on the Mark starts from, one for headlines and one for text, with weight, spacing and case.

Reaction decides how the Mark makes room for words. Presets run Off, Subtle, Clear and Wide, and the dials let you tune it: Recolour slides the palette toward a contrasting colour behind words, Flow around routes ridges and grain around letters, Calm relaxes the material, Reach decides whether it hugs each letter or the whole block, and Settle moves the material so words land on its calmest part.

Explore, shuffle and lock

Explore lays twelve variations around your Mark. Choose the kind: Nearby for small moves, Bolder, Calmer, Other materials for the same colours in new materials, Other palettes for the same material in new colours, or Surprise for further afield. Hold the Option key as you click one to compare it with yours side by side.

1. 1

   Shuffle one section at a time

   Every section has its own shuffle: a new colour, a new light or new particles while the rest stays. Undo brings back the last one.

2. 2

   Lock what you love

   Lock a section and shuffles and variations leave it alone. Locking Colour and exploring Other materials is a quick way to find the right surface for a palette you already like.

3. 3

   Keep versions as you go

   Versions are saved automatically while you edit, before the AI changes anything, and whenever you choose Save version. Compare any two and restore either.

Formats and export from the Forge

Switch the stage to Formats to see the Mark in many shapes at once, or add your own format in pixels, inches, centimetres or millimetres with a print resolution. Export downloads the Mark itself at 1×, 2× or 4× a format's size, at 8K or 16K on the long side, or at an exact width, as PNG, JPEG or WebP, or as a 5 to 10 second loop video, with or without your test words. Downloading a Mark you don't hold asks you to claim it first. For full designs with words, photos and pages, export from the Studio instead; see exporting images and loops.