CSS Gradient Generator

Gradients work best as a system, not one‑off backgrounds. Define tokens—angles, stop counts, preferred ramps—and reuse them across components. Your brand will look coherent because the physics repeat.

Start with two families: subtle UI ramps (low contrast, long transitions) and expressive hero ramps (higher contrast, shorter transitions). Bind these to names like --grad-ui-1, --grad-hero-2 and ship them as variables.

Give each token a documented purpose and minimum/maximum sizes so designers don’t stretch ramps beyond recognition. When you add a new gradient, consider how it fits the taxonomy rather than inventing a bespoke curve. This discipline keeps marketing pages, dashboards, and product surfaces visually related without identical colors, and it allows the gradient generator to output consistent CSS across themes and campaigns.

Codify luminance steps and chroma limits per token so ramps remain readable behind text. Provide dark and light counterparts for every hero ramp to prevent one‑off theme hacks. Pair each token with sample surfaces (cards, headers, charts) and capture screenshots in CI to detect drift when color libraries change. Treat gradients as a first‑class design primitive, not decoration.

Linear gradients suggest direction and motion; radial gradients suggest focus and origin. If a surface should guide reading order, use linear along that axis. If it should highlight a locus (like a button state), prefer radial.

In cramped layouts, radial gradients can create unintended hotspots. Tame them with elliptical shapes and off‑center positions, or switch to a shallow linear ramp.

Conic gradients add cyclical narratives—great for dials and progress but overwhelming as backgrounds. The gradient generator should encourage the smallest effect that communicates intent, defaulting to linear for content surfaces and reserving radial or conic for targeted emphasis where the user’s eye benefits from a center or rotation.

When layouts are responsive, revisit the choice: a linear ramp that reads well on desktop may compete with stacked content on mobile. Provide breakpoints that reduce contrast or switch to a radial accent near the call‑to‑action. Your generator can attach these behaviors to tokens so components adapt without bespoke CSS.

Color stops are beats in a composition. Cluster stops to create a “knot” of color where attention should pause; space them to imply calm. Think in easing curves—long ease‑in to avoid banding, quick ease‑out to land color decisively.

Limit yourself to 3–5 stops for UI surfaces. More stops often read as noise unless you’re painting a hero or illustration.

Use the gradient generator to preview ramps on textured and flat surfaces; subtle banding appears only in context. If you must use many stops, group them around transitions and leave generous spans of near‑solid color so the eye rests. This technique yields perceptually smoother results and keeps file size under control.

For data‑heavy backgrounds, bias stop placement away from text regions. Combine stop clustering with a mild overlay to stabilize legibility without resorting to hard scrims. Provide presets for “behind text,” “behind media,” and “hero image” so creators start from sane defaults rather than eyeballing every surface.

Motion should be barely there for everyday UI. Animate angle or position slowly (15–30s loops) and freeze during user input to reduce distraction. Prefer opacity fades between preset ramps for predictable performance.

Respect reduced‑motion preferences and keep GPU work modest. Avoid constantly changing complex backgrounds under text; readability beats spectacle.

When gradients are interactive, tie motion to intent—e.g., a small parallax shift on scroll or a directional change when a panel opens. Cap duration and easing so movement feels like a property of the surface rather than a video playing behind content.

Ship a “calm mode” token that replaces animated ramps with static counterparts. In user tests, small groups love motion while others find it distracting; defaults should serve the majority while offering opt‑in delight. Your generator can export both variants and a single class switch to toggle them site‑wide.

On dark surfaces, luminance steps matter more than hue shifts. Keep the brightest stop below your text contrast threshold, and avoid neon ramps that bloom on OLED. Tinted shadows can anchor gradients without raising luminance.

Audit with a luminance plot or simulate deuteranopia/tritanopia: the ramp should remain legible when hue information is reduced.

Prefer desaturated colors that sit comfortably against dark backgrounds and let highlights come from controlled contrast rather than pure brightness. The gradient generator should default to calm, low‑noise ramps for dark themes and expose higher‑energy presets only where brand moments require them.

Test with real devices in low light. OLED smearing, PWM flicker perception, and system tinting can subtly alter ramps. Provide a “dark surfacing” guideline: cap maximum luminance, advise gentle chroma, and specify safe overlay ranges for text. Documenting these constraints turns subjective taste into repeatable practice.

Conic gradients shine in dials and cyclic data. Use perceptually uniform palettes (e.g., viridis) to prevent mid‑range cliffs. Align legend ticks with stop positions so the color story matches the data story.

Beware chroma spikes that look like “false edges.” If users read edges as events, your ramp becomes misleading.

Always test with color‑blind safe palettes and provide numeric annotations for key thresholds. The gradient generator should export both the ramp and a legend component so consumers cannot detach the color narrative from the data it represents.

When charts compress due to responsive layouts, snap palette ticks to fewer labeled steps and increase ramp linearity. The generator can calculate accessible contrasts between adjacent legend swatches to prevent confusion in dense dashboards.

Replace legacy bitmap backgrounds with CSS gradients iteratively. Start with the largest surfaces (headers, heroes), match angles and stops, then delete assets. You’ll save bandwidth and gain themeability.

Codify each win as a token and write a testable CSS snippet. Refactors that stick are the ones you can reuse.

Keep a changelog of removed assets and the tokens that replace them. Over time, the build gets smaller and theming becomes easier because a single variable change cascades across the system, something static images could never deliver.

For teams with design tokens in multiple repos, export gradients as platform‑agnostic JSON first, then derive CSS variables, Android XML, and iOS colors. This single source of truth prevents drift and lets QA snapshot gradients across platforms with one tool.