How to create a vibrant gradient with 2 Pantone Colors?

Question

I'm working on a logo with a gradient. The original gradient is set along a path. When I outline the stroke, Illustrator converts it to a mesh. This seems to work well for both RGB and CMYK versions of the logo.

However, I also need to make a Pantone version, and this is where I'm running into an issue. I'm using Pantone 2955C and 368C. When I bring the PMS values into the gradient, some odd stripes appear.

I found a method for using overprint to try to accomplish this here. One method, involving stacking 2 gradients that go from 100% to 0% opacity, results in washed-out colors, so that isn't ideal. The other involves using one gradient and stacking it over a solid color, which had good results for a blue and darker blue value used in that example. However, here is the result when I have a blue gradient that adjusts from 0% opacity to 100% again set over the solid green color:

It resembles basically setting the blue to Multiply over the green. So basically, I'm looking for a way to maintain a vibrant gradient using 2 different PMS values, and I haven't found a method that works. Does anyone have a way to accomplish this while maintaining it as a vector graphic?

Answer 1

The other answer is right, but I will elaborate a bit more here.

Here I have two shapes so we can easily identify the colors. In your case, the shape will be the same overlapped.

The trick is to clearly define a starting point and a finish point of the transition.

I am not using a swatch, I am adding actual transparency to the objects. You can see it if you download the linked PNG. Also, I am using Multiply blending mode so I can simulate better the overprint.

But you might have a "washed" zone in the center of the two gradients.

So, one way to solve it is to move a gradient, in this case, I am moving the lighter color transparency starting and ending points to the orange lines, so the colors have more zone to overlap.

It is difficult to get the amount of overlapping.

I am adding some weird graphs here. They are describing the amount of ink on the vertical axis, and the X axis is just a representation of the with of your shapes.

As you can see in (A) an ink starts dropping and in the middle, they are 50%. But the perception of darkness and light is not linear, that is why I am compensating by moving them so they overlap more. (B)

Probably the ideal case is that the amount of ink decreases logarithmically or in a curve (C), but this is probably too much to ask, so I will keep the B option as the most viable one.

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_{I am wondering... probably the percentages (d) using a specific kind of curve are the right amount to overlap... 🤔}

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_{Would also be possible that we need to stop the overlapping on the dark side sooner, so the dark color does not get darker before taking the final color? 🤔}