Algorithmic design
Line art and patterns
Every example is a starting point. Each one fits itself to the artboard, so it works on a business card and on a poster alike. Open them from Menu ▸ Algorithmic design or from the Examples tab of the window.
Line art
Black on white, drawn with a single pen. The stroke weight is set in points, so what you see is what prints.
| Example | What it draws | Try |
|---|---|---|
| Ridgelines | Stacked lines with noisy peaks. Each line hides the ones behind it. | More Lines and a higher Peak height for a denser mountain range. |
| Topography | Contour lines of a noise landscape, like a hiking map. | Terrain scale for more or fewer hills, Levels for the number of lines. |
| Line sphere | Parallel lines bending over an invisible ball. | Bulge at 0 flattens the ball; above 1 it stretches. |
| Harmonograph | The line a pen draws on two swinging pendulums that slowly settle. | Keep Pendulum 1 and Pendulum 2 close to a simple ratio (3 and 2.01) for knots that drift. |
| Moiré | Two sets of fine rings, slightly apart. A third pattern appears where they meet. | A small Offset with many Rings. |
| Schotter | After Georg Nees (1968): a grid of squares that breaks down row by row. | Chaos at 0 for a calm grid, 3 for a landslide. |
| (Des)Ordres | After Vera Molnár: nested squares with every corner nudged at random. | A little Disorder goes a long way. |
| 10 PRINT maze | One random choice per cell, / or \, and a maze appears. | Fewer Cells across and a heavier Weight for a bold poster. |
| Truchet tiles | Quarter circles in random turns that join into flowing loops. | New variation until the loops look right. |
| Spirograph | The curve a pen draws inside a rolling circle. | New pairs of circle sizes give new figures; Pen offset changes the loops. |
New variation keeps every setting and makes new random choices, so you can try many versions of the same design and keep the one you like.
Tips for print
- Line weight. Very thin lines can break up in print. Most printers ask for at least 0.25 pt; check with yours before you go thinner.
- Paper. Ridgelines hides lines behind white shapes. On a colored background, set Paper to the background color so the shapes disappear into it.
- Density. A few thousand lines are fine. For very dense designs, choose Output ▸ Merged by style: the file stays small, and the lines still cover each other as drawn.
- Editing afterwards. The result is ordinary vector shapes. Recolor the group, change a stroke or pull a single line out, like anything you drew by hand.
Patterns
| Example | What it draws |
|---|---|
| Flow field | Short strokes that follow smooth noise, like wind or hair, blending between two colors. |
| Honeycomb | Hexagons whose color drifts across the page. |
| Sunflower | Seeds placed by the golden angle, the way a sunflower grows them. |
| Halftone | A grid of circles, squares or diamonds that grow towards the center. |
| Voronoi mosaic | Cells around evenly spread points, shaded by noise, with grout lines between them. |
Color pickers in Controls change the colors; in a CMYK document the results get CMYK values like everything else you draw.
With the selection
These change the objects you select, and are only available when something is selected.
| Example | What it does |
|---|---|
| Arrange on a circle | Places the selected objects evenly around a circle, optionally turned to face outward. |
| Recolor left to right | Blends the selection from one color to another across the page. |
| Scatter copies | Copies the selected object to random places, sizes and angles. |
| Dots along an outline | Puts evenly spaced dots on the selected shape's outline. |
The preview shows each object as an outline at its new place. Nothing changes until you press Apply, and one Undo puts everything back.