Light and dark in vector drawing (adding depth and weight without gradient fills, drop shadows or inner glows)

This is a brief post on shading in vector drawing and how to use light and dark for depth and weight. I begin with a grey rectangle that's 25% black. It looks rather flat.

Next I add a base to my rectangle, it's 50% black. Already we're starting to see something that isn't there, a white almost side to the object.

Let's fill that in, to make the whole thing a bit less uncanny. We'll use 12.5% black for that right-hand side. This gives a sense of being lifted forward, while the dark underneath gives the sense of solidity.

To demonstrate the way in which the shades of colour add certain qualities (dark = depth, weight; light = lightness, and bringing forward) we'll switch the colour of the base with that of the side and vice versa. Now it's almost as if we can see up inside this shape. It begins to look like one of those cuboid lampshades.

To increase this sense of openness I'm going to add a small detail. Notice the flap at the back is dark and the one at the front is lighter, but still slightly darker than the main rectangle that we began with.

Now I'm going to turn it up the right way. There's still work to be done, but it begins to look like some kind of box or carton.

And guess what we didn't use a single gradient fill, drop shadow or inner glow to achieve this. Better still we can use the same techniques when working with colour. Try it now with a single colour, adding and removing black from that colour.

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