Gradiently, a design tool for creators: one look everywhere

A good design tool for creators has to solve one specific problem: you publish the same idea in six shapes, on six platforms, every week, and it should look like you in all of them. Gradiently does that by starting every design from a Mark, a living gradient and material background that belongs to one owner at a time, then laying the same design out again for each size you need. You get a look your audience recognises in a scroll, and you stop rebuilding the same post by hand.

The formats a creator actually makes

Before choosing any tool, write down what one piece of content becomes. For most creators, a single video or episode turns into a thumbnail, a vertical cover, a feed post, a story or two and, now and then, a new banner. These are the sizes Gradiently uses for each, following each platform's recommended upload size.

Start from a look, not a template

Templates are fast, which is why so many channels share them. A viewer who has seen the same layout on five other thumbnails this morning gives yours less attention. Branding for content creators covers the wider idea; the short version is that the most recognisable thing you can own is the surface everything sits on.

In Gradiently that surface is a Mark: a recipe of colours, up to three stacked materials, light, grain, motion and a type voice. Every Mark is crafted by Gradiently and checked against every other, and anything too close is refused, so no two look alike. You can design with any Mark nobody has claimed, for free. When you find the one that feels like your channel, claiming it puts your name on its public record, gives you a numbered certificate and means only you can export with it.

From one design to every platform size

Cropping a landscape thumbnail into a story cuts off the words or leaves them tiny. With Pro, copy to sizes lays a finished design out again for each format you tick, in one step: the headline moves, the type rescales and the Mark renders fresh at every size rather than being stretched. Choosing one new size is free on any plan. Resize a design for all platforms shows the step in detail.

Thumbnails and covers that stay readable

Thumbnails are read tiny, often on a phone, often for under a second. A strong background is the fastest way to be noticed and the fastest way to lose your words. A Mark knows where the text is: its calmest, best-contrasting region moves behind it, colours near the letters deepen or lift, and busy detail relaxes. Auto ink picks light or dark type for each line from the Mark's own palette. There are no boxes, outlines or shadows to manage. Auto ink explains the mechanics.

For a title that needs more presence, the Lettering treatments add character without a plate: Contour, Inline, Cut, Extrude, Double, Trail, Riso and Halo. Use one per series so viewers learn it.

Video, captions and recording in the same place

Most creators bounce between a design app, a video editor and a screen recorder. With Pro, Gradiently includes a video timeline with captions and music, plus camera, screen and voice recording. You review each clip before it goes into the design, and it stays in your browser until you add it. Text can rise, pop, wipe or type itself in. Videos export as MP4 or WebM up to 4K without a watermark where your browser supports it. GIF exports have their own size and file limits.

A weekly flow you can repeat

1. 1

   Pick your Mark once

   Browse the Market by colour words such as "deep teal" or by look, try a few on real thumbnails, then claim the one you keep coming back to.

2. 2

   Fill in your brand kit

   Add your logo, a heading and a body font, your palette and your voice. The kit can read your website to fill in its name, description, colour and icon.

3. 3

   Design the hero piece first

   Make the thumbnail properly, because it is the hardest format. Everything else inherits its words and hierarchy.

4. 4

   Copy it to every size

   Tick the story, the Shorts cover and the feed post. Check each one, nudge anything that needs it, and leave the rest.

5. 5

   Batch the recurring posts

   For episode lists or weekly schedules, bulk create builds one page per row of a spreadsheet; one Undo removes the whole batch.

If you would rather describe than drag, the Designer, Gradiently's AI, asks what it needs, writes the words in your kit's voice, lays the design out in your Mark and makes the other sizes. You can also work from ChatGPT or Claude: once connected, an assistant can search Marks and create designs that open in your Studio. Connect an AI assistant walks through it.

Free or Pro for a creator

Free is enough to find your Mark and test it on real thumbnails. A working channel posting every week will usually want Pro for the sizes, the video tools and clean 4K exports. Claiming a Mark is a one-time payment that includes the first year of keeping; after that, keeping is free with Pro. Gradiently free vs Pro lays out the rest.