Introduction
Hey everyone! This is my third tutorial for Adobe XD. I have two big announcements! I’m going to be posting a course for XD every week, and I’ve decided to call this series the Weekly XD. Anyways. Today, we are diving deep into fills and borders and what you can do with them! We’re going to learn all about the different types of fills, and how we can use them. Let’s get started!
Fills & Borders
A brief review on what these are, the fill is the inside color of a shape, and the border is the outside color of the shape. Take the image below for example. The blue is the fill, and the red is the border.
Now, let’s dive deep into what we can do with both of these things, starting with the fill.
Fills
Let’s start by making a shape. Any shape will do, I’m going to use a circle. Once you have your shape, you should have the following things on the right of your screen
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For this tutorial, we are going to focus mainly on the fill and border. Let’s click on the box next to fill. It’s white right now, representing the color of the circle. Click on it, and this should pop up:
Let’s start with a basic solid color. You can use the bar to the left with all of the colors to change it. I’m going to drag the circle into a nice blue.
But wait . . . Why is the circle still white? Well, it’s time to focus our attention on the big box to the right. That is basically the brightness of your fill. Currently, It’s at the top left corner, which is white. I’m going to drag it to the right, somewhere between the top right and top left.
Now, that’s better. Let’s talk about a few more things here, though. The bar all the way to the left is the transparency. Drag it lower, and your shape will become slightly transparent.
Now, the other way to change the fill color is the hex code. At the bottom, you’ll see a #, then a series of numbers. The hex code for this circle is #1A0088. You can also click the dropdown that says hex, and choose whatever color identification system you want. There is Hex, RGB, and HSB. Now, do you notice the dropper next to fill? That allows you to choose any color in your document you want. Here’s an example:
One last thing about fill, you can toggle it on and off. Do you see the √ next to the fill box? Click it and see what happens! It’s also more noticeable with a thick border.
Well, you know how to use a solid color, but what if you want to blend things? Let’s try clicking that dropdown at the top that says solid color, and click linear gradient. You’ll now see two dots along a line. Here’s what it looks like so far:
Notice the new line at the top of the fill box. That allows you to change the color of the dots. You can also try moving around the dots.
Okay, one last thing about linear gradients, you can add more points along the line. Click on a place towards the center of the gradient bar, and then you have an extra point! Try changing it’s fill and seeing what happens.
Okay! It’s time for the last type of gradient! Click the dropdown at the top again, and click radial gradient. This is a circular gradient. It responds pretty much the same as a linear gradient, but with a circle! Here’s an example video:
There is one difference between radial and linear gradients. Notice the circle in the corner, that changes the circle. Drag it around, see what happens! You can make an oval fill, any sort of ellipse. Well, that’s all for fills! Time to move on to borders!
Borders
These are the blue in the example triangle, or the outside of the shape.
Borders have one more property that fills don’t. The boldness or size. You can change it here:
See the number next to B? That’s the property. Border fills behave the same as the shape fill. You can use the dropper, click on the box, turn it off and on. There is one major exception. Borders are only solid colors. No gradients. Other than that, there is only one difference. The dash and gap. These values add gaps in between the lines. Try changing the values.
This is 50. It also looks better with circles, and without a fill. Well, that’s it! Time for the outro!
Outro
Sadly, we’ve come to the end. Thanks for reading! 
Look out for my next Weekly XD next week.2020-09-07T07:00:00Z