What it is: A digital or print effect where one color fades into another. Typically rendered in soft or pastel tones.
Where it is: Gradients are seemingly everywhere in media and marketing. They are part of a suite of Facebook status backdrops introduced in 2017 and the branding for the New York Times' popular podcast The Daily, which displays a yellow to blue gradient.
Gradients have taken over Coachella's app and website (if you watch carefully, the colors shift). Ally's billboard in A Star Is Born is a full-on gradient, and so was the branding for the Oscars ceremony that recognized Lady Gaga.
On Instagram, they provide a product backdrop for popular Korean beauty brand Glow, and have been embraced by indie magazines Gossamer and Anxy — both designed by Berkeley studio Anagraph.
"Gradients are a visual manifestation of all of these different spectrums that we live on"
On the luxury front, Brooklyn wallpaper company Calico has released an entire collection of gradient wallpapers called Aurora. Meanwhile, Spanish fashion house Loewe has introduced a version of their trendy Elephant bag in a spectrum of pink to yellow.
Are gradients drinkable? Heck yes, they are. Seltzer startup Recess has gone all-in on gradients in their branding.
Why you're seeing it everywhere: Gradients are the confluence of three different trends: Light and Space art, vaporwave, and bisexual lighting.
In the art and design world, Light and Space — developed in the 1960s and '70s — has been experiencing a revival thanks to its Instagramability. Light and Space pioneer James Turrell has been embraced by celebrities like Beyoncé, Drake, and Kanye West. Drake's Hotline Bling video was inspired by Turrell's light-infused rooms called Ganzfelds. The Kardashian-Jenner-West crew posted an Instagram in front of one of Turrell's works in Los Angeles. (I was yelled at by security for taking a picture there but it's fine.)
“Before, I think we lived in a binary world. Gradients are a very modern representation of the world.”
James Turrell's works come with a warning because the visitor quickly loses all depth perception. Soft gradients are alluring because they cut through the noise of social media, but they also are disorienting. The Twitter bot soft landscapes operates on a similar principle, but some days the landscape all but disappears.
“It's nice to see calming things amongst all of the social ramifications of Instagram,” says Rion Harmon of Day Job, the design firm of record for Recess. Harmon compares the Recess branding to a sunset so beautiful you can't help but stare (or take a picture) however busy you are. Changes to the sky are even more pronounced in Los Angeles, where Harmon's studio is now based. “The quality of light in LA is something miraculous,” he says. The Light and Space movement was also started in Southern California, and it's in the DNA of Coachella.
Vaporwave is a musical and aesthetic movement (started in the early 2010s) that spliced ambient music, advertising, and imagery from when the internet started. Gradient artwork shared by the clothing brand Public Space is vaporwave. So is this meme posted by direct-to-consumer health startup Hers.