Design templates in Gradiently: start from a layout, keep your look

Design templates in Gradiently are finished layouts you start from: a launch post, a café menu, a podcast cover, a wedding invitation, a phone wallpaper. What makes them different from a typical template library is that every one is drawn on a Mark, a living gradient and material background, and you can swap in your own Mark so the layout arrives wearing your look. You keep the structure someone else worked out and lose the part that would make you look like everyone else using it.

This guide covers where templates live, what happens when you use one, how to add them to a design you already have, and how to publish your own. If you are new to the product, getting started in the Studio and what a Mark is are good first reads.

Where to find templates in Gradiently

Templates live in Explore. You can search with plain words such as menu, launch, wedding or pink, then narrow the results with filters. Made by separates templates crafted by Gradiently from ones members have shared. For groups them by purpose, Size by format, and Colour and Look (light or dark) by how they feel.

Each template has its own page showing the design large, its format and size, the Mark it wears and who crafted it. From there you can use it, share it, open its Mark, or look through More like this for layouts in the same spirit.

What happens when you use a template

Choose Use this template and Gradiently makes a new design from it and opens it in the Studio, where you change the words, add photos and adjust anything you like. The template itself is untouched; you are working on your own copy.

The more important button is Swap in my Mark. It redraws the same layout on a Mark you hold, so the colours, material and light become yours while the composition stays. Back to its own Mark undoes the swap if you want to compare. If you don't hold a Mark yet, Gradiently points you to the Market first; our guide to finding and claiming a Mark walks through it.

A template page also tells you who owns the Mark it wears. You can always use the template, whoever holds that Mark. If the Mark is still held by Gradiently, you can claim it from the same page, or choose Make your own version to open the Forge and craft a new Mark in its spirit.

Adding a template to a design you already have

You don't need to leave the Studio to use a template. Open the Templates panel from the left rail and pick one. The layouts there are made again for your Mark at your page's size, so what you see is what lands.

1. 1

   Open Templates in the Studio

   Use the Templates item on the Studio's left rail. Search, or browse by category.

2. 2

   Pick a layout

   It lands as a new page after the one you're on. If your design is still a single empty page, the template fills that page instead.

3. 3

   Keep your pictures

   Photos you uploaded stay. The template brings its words and shapes, laid out for your page.

4. 4

   Undo in one step

   Adding a template is a single change, so one undo takes it away again. The toast that confirms it has an Undo button too.

5. 5

   Look sideways with Similar

   The Similar panel shows templates, Marks and styles like the page you're on. A template picked there also lands as a new page.

Templates in every format

Explore's Size filter covers posts, stories, squares, posters, pins, phone and desktop wallpapers, slides, thumbnails, business cards, banners, X headers and link previews. Because a Mark renders live for each shape rather than being cropped from one image, the same look holds from a tall story to a wide header.

Post 4:5

1080 × 1350

Story 9:16

1080 × 1920

Square 1:1

1080 × 1080

A4 poster

2480 × 3508

Slide 16:9

1920 × 1080

X header 3:1

1500 × 500

Link preview

1200 × 630

Business card

1050 × 600

Once one version is finished, you rarely need a separate template for every platform. Copy to sizes lays the finished design out again for each format you choose; one look, every size explains how it decides what goes where. For the numbers behind each format, see the social media image sizes cheat sheet.

How to make a template look like yours

The reason templated work is easy to spot is that thousands of people change the words and nothing else. A few deliberate changes go a long way; using templates without looking templated goes deeper.

Your brand kit does much of this for you. With your logos, colours and fonts set once, Apply brand kit in the Studio brings them into the page; setting up your brand kit covers what to add.

How to publish your own template

Any signed-in member can share a design as a template, and published templates show in Explore and on your profile.

1. 1

   Choose Publish a template in Explore

   Pick one of your designs. Anyone will be able to start from it, while the design itself stays yours and private.

2. 2

   Name it the way people search

   "Autumn menu for a small café" is found; "Design 14" is not. Then choose what it's for, which files it under a category.

3. 3

   Check what gets left out

   Photos you uploaded stay private and are left out of the template, so people starting from it add their own.

4. 4

   Update or unpublish any time

   Publishing takes a copy of the design at that moment. Later changes stay private until you choose Update template, and Unpublish takes it down.