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TIL a client told me my gradients were muddy and she was right | Color Theory in Practice - The Design Community Hub

TIL a client told me my gradients were muddy and she was right

I was working on a brand identity for a local coffee shop called Brew & Bloom back in April. I thought I was killing it with these warm sunset gradients from red to yellow. Client looked at the mockup and said "it looks like a bad bruise, not a sunrise." At first I was mad but she was totally right. The issue was I was blending colors that were too close on the wheel without enough contrast. I switched to using a 3-stop gradient with a clear midtone and bam, it popped. Now I always check my gradient paths in HSB mode instead of just RGB. Has anyone else had a client call out an obvious color mistake you missed?

2 comments

2 Comments

cole_mitchell573mo ago

Went through something similar painting my truck last year. I spent two days mixing this deep forest green, kept adding black trying to get it darker. Finally sprayed a test panel and it looked like black paint with a little bit of dirt in it, not green at all. My buddy came over, took one look, and said "that's not green, that's just depressed black." Had to start over with a proper base color and just tint it from there. Sometimes you get too close to something and can't see what's right in front of you.

the_shane3mo ago

... depressed black? That's brutal. I can't believe your buddy actually said that out loud, but honestly that's the kind of friend everyone needs. I bet he saved you from painting your whole truck that color and then having to explain it to everyone who asked "wait is that supposed to be green?" The part about adding black to darken it really hit me, I do that exact same thing with gradients all the time and it just kills the color. Just makes everything look dead.