- In my 30 years of talking to digital artist
and designers, there's one topic that comes up
over and over again, regardless of discipline.
The topic that seems to bind us all,
across genders, from one generation to the next.
The topic that even when were mad at each other,
brings us together so we can make peace,
it's patterns.
Maybe you thought I was going to say bees.
I'll grant you, we need more bees.
Without bees, we're doomed.
But I really believe it's patterns,
backgrounds, fabric designs, maps, research,
mathematics, gothic, Victorian, op art,
skull, love, undersea, nature, flower, lace.
There's no search term that will not turn up a pattern.
I think I mean that literally.
Just a moment ago, I searched for the word, bee
and I got a pattern.
It all starts with a single tile.
Now a tile is a unit that repeats over and over,
like the tiles on a kitchen floor.
A tile can be rectangular, or hexagonal,
and depending on how you create it,
the tile may repeat with intentional edges,
or so seamlessly, that you can't tell where one tile
blends into the next.
Which is where the one gets lost in the space
of its neighbors and sense of the grand pattern
begins to emerge.
A pattern may be expressed as a fill or a stroke,
in which case it repeats within the physical
boundaries of either.
But then there's this other thing,
the pattern brush.
This guy allows you to repeat a series of tile patterns
along the length of a path outline.
One tile determines the appearance of the brush
along a segment and around a smooth point.
You can create additional corner tiles
that appear at corner points as well as start and end tiles
that appear at the end points of an open path.
I love patterns.
And I love Illustrator's pattern editing mode.
But if there's a trick, and there is,
it's that you have to know the exact size
of your repeating pattern tile.
Thankfully, I will be conveying that information,
as well as much much more, over the course
of this exhaustive and largely bee free chapter.
By which I mean, patterns let you be free.