Find a gradient by color, mood or code in the Market

To find a gradient by color in Gradiently, open the Market and type the colour the way you would describe it to a friend: deep teal, blush pastel, navy and orange. Add a material if you have one in mind, such as teal silk or warm grain, then narrow the results with the Colour, Ground and Mood filters. If someone has given you a Mark's code, paste it in, with or without the dots, and you land on that one Mark.

Every result is a Mark: a living gradient and material background with a palette, light, grain, motion and a type voice. You can design with any Mark nobody has claimed for free, so searching well is the first step to finding the one you'll want to keep.

Four things the search box understands

How to describe a colour so search finds it

Single colour names are broad. "Blue" covers ice, cobalt, navy and teal, which have almost nothing in common as backgrounds. Add a depth word, a temperature, or a second colour, and results tighten quickly.

Mood words help as much as colour. Calm, warm, soft and nocturnal describe how a background feels, and they are often what you really mean. Colour psychology has a useful vocabulary for this, and gradient colour combinations shows which pairs blend cleanly.

Filters that narrow the results

• Colour: red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, magenta, pink, brown, black, white or grey.
• Ground: light or dark. This decides the mood more than any accent, so set it early.
• Mood: vivid, soft, dark, neon, calm, warm, cool, monochrome, colourful, sand, minimal or textured.
• Material: the surface families, such as silk, paper, marble, velvet and grain.
• Style: minimal, luxe, editorial, tech, organic, dreamy or bold.
• Availability: ready to claim, already claimed, listed by owners, or every Mark.

Then choose how to sort. Most beautiful is Gradiently's own quality ranking, best first. Newest, Most loved (most favourited), Library No. and Shuffle for a fresh mix are there too, and when you're looking at Marks owners have listed, you can sort by price. If a combination returns nothing, the Market suggests a filter to take off or a word to try, such as Silk, Paper or Aurora.

A worked search: a calm, dark green for a wellness studio

1. 1

   Start with words

   Type dark calm green. It describes ground, mood and colour in three words.

2. 2

   Set Ground to dark and Availability to ready to claim

   Now you only see dark Marks nobody holds, the ones you could make yours.

3. 3

   Try a material

   Add Material: paper for something printed and quiet, or silk for something softer and more luxurious. Compare the two sets.

4. 4

   Open three candidates

   On each Mark page, look at its colours from darkest to brightest and use More like this to explore sideways.

5. 5

   Save the shortlist

   Favourite the ones you like, so they wait for you. Favourites explains where they live.

6. 6

   Test on real words

   Choose Try it on a design first and put your actual headline on each, at phone size.

Searching by code

Every Mark has a public code such as GR·K7Q2·MX. Codes are the most precise search there is: one code, one Mark. You don't need the dots or capitals, which makes codes easy to share in a message or a brief.

GR·K7Q2·MX    as printed on the Mark
GRK7Q2MX      without the dots
grk7q2mx      lower case

All three find the same Mark.

What the parts of a code mean, and where else you can use one, is in Mark codes explained. Once you've found a Mark you love, how to claim a Mark takes you from shortlist to owner.