Document

A pattern implies some kind of repetition and purpose. Its meaning has been given a wide scope in now days. It can be taken to include any given area whose parts are held together visually by a similarity in shape, style, rhythm, or character. This is as relevant to a pile of bricks or piece of machinery as it is to a design for a length of fabric.

Pattern as applied to design, art, and craft also take many forms. It can provide the purpose for an observed drawing or painting, or it can be used as pure decoration on fabric, pottery, and other craft objects. It can suggest the subject for an imaginative composition, and enlivens areas of all kinds of paintings, figurative or abstract. It may form the basis of an abstract painting, or an exercise in colour or use of materials. In some crafts, such as making mosaics, weaving, or painting itself, it is inherent in the very act of carrying them out.
Because of its breadth and variety, and its basic simplicity, the subject is one which designer can return to again and again to discover new ideas and inspiration.

Repeat Pattern

Repeat structures are a crucial element of pattern design, providing, as William Morris, a leading and influential member of the Arts and crafts movement, stated: ‘a wall against vagueness by means of definite form bounded by firm outline.’
A repeat pattern may be regular or non-regular. A regular repeat pattern is, as the name suggests, an over-all design consisting of one or more motifs repeated at regular intervals. A motif is the basic unit of a pattern, and may be an arbitrary or abstract shape, or it may be derived from an object. Both the motif and the interval may be varied within a single regular repeat pattern, provided it is in a regular and predictable manner. Hence, it is possible to alternate a circle with a square, one colour with another, or a wide space with a narrow one. It is possible to arrange several motifs into a larger unit, which itself can be repeated.
A non-regular repeat pattern is one in which each motif and interval is intuitively arranged in individual relation to one another, whilst still preserving a unity between all the parts.

Many fine artists and graphic artist have been concerned with principles of harmony and order, from Leonardo ad Vinci and Albrecht Dürer to the 20th century Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. He was enormously fascinated by the production of multiple images, and this desire for multiplication can be seen in many of his works. The 1960s saw many artists, including Victor Vasarely, Andy Warhol and Bridget Riley, Who used repetition as a means of conveying particular messages through their images. Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans 200 created multiple representations to negate the ‘significance’ of the individual motif, and introduced mechanical processes to eliminate the ‘preciousness’ that is usually associated with the original artwork. There is now, with computer systems. Software is currently being developed that will allow the exercises and further pattern manipulation to be generated, and information to be stored with greater speed and efficiency. There are many designers that work in this field, such as Ryan McGinness and Hanna Werning.