Many gradients look gaudy to me these days. You don't need phong shading on your buttons, a slight bevel using a darker and lighter shade are enough to draw my

Many gradients look gaudy to me these days. You don't need phong shading on your buttons, a slight bevel using a darker and lighter shade are enough to draw my attention. That is not to say I like flat design, I dislike 'faux curvy 3d' design. Clean lines can be combined with depth perception. For this, very small gradients (i.e. to soften edges) make sense, but these are gradients that ought to be very small. On this 14" laptop I'd say at most 1mm.