Six patterns and three lithographs. Black ink on white paper, letterforms filled with a small library of shapes and repeats.
The rules were set before the first print.
Every pattern is drawn twice, once black on white and once reversed. After that the only things that change are scale and spacing.
Each swatch is a tile that repeats in any direction, at any size. Most of the detail in the prints comes from layering them.
The Shapes
Dots at two scales, a dense halftone and an open grid. Lines three ways: vertical hairlines, horizontal bands, diagonal stripes. And one diamond grid.
No Color
I wanted the shapes and the letterforms to be the focus, so color was never in it.
Thick stripes come forward and thin hairlines drop back. That is the whole tonal range.
The Three Prints
They read "the fancy," "highball stepper," and "jack white." One is set in script, one in geometric capitals, and one in a mix of the two.
It sits low in the left corner, with swashes running off the edge of the sheet, over a fine dot grid.
It reads "the fancy." Polka dots fill the bowl of the 'a,' diagonal stripes the crossbar of the 'F.' The descender of the 'y' gets vertical hairlines.
Dense dots, white on black
The dense end of the range
One of twelve tiles
The whole library is six shapes.
Highball stepper, lithograph 02
Slab capitals and script
Photographed on the bench
Scroll. It fills the mat, then travels the frame
Slab capitals stack edge to edge with script threaded between them, and at that size the tiles read a lot bolder.
Large polka dots fill a capital 'E' and diagonal stripes run through a slab-serif 'R' from top to bottom. Geometric serifs sit in among the slabs.
With no color, spacing is the only tone control.
The calligraphy across the top is thin enough to read as drawing. The geometric 'A' and the slab 'K' in the lower right are the heaviest shapes on the sheet.
The dot grid behind it is the most open of the three prints, pinpoints on a wide field. Not every stroke gets a fill here, so the ones that do read louder.
Sparse dots, white on black
The open end of the range
Dots at the other scale
What changes between them is how big each one runs, and how much of the sheet it covers.
That was enough for three prints that don't look like they came from the same set.
The Dot Grid
Background in "the fancy," at a scale fine enough to read as light gray, close to paper grain. In "highball stepper" the same tile is blown up to fill a whole capital, and at that size each dot is a shape in its own right. In "jack white" it drops to sparse pinpoints.
Diagonal Stripes
The same 45-degree stripe at the same line weight in both prints. In "the fancy" it is one crossbar wide and easy to miss. In "highball stepper" it fills a slab letter top to bottom, and blown up like that the angle gives the whole stack some speed.
The only difference is how much of the letter it covers.
White Space
Three ratios of ink to paper. "the fancy" is mostly paper, with the letters clustered in the lower left. "highball stepper" runs edge to edge. "jack white" sits between them, open background, dense cluster at the bottom.
That ratio is most of what separates the sparse print from the packed one.
The patterns are close to childlike. The type goes the other way: Didone serifs, calligraphic swashes, slab capitals with real weight. Setting one against the other is most of what makes the prints work at wall size.
There was no client and no deadline on this one. Once the rules were set, the rest of it was a lot of fun to make.
Pattern Design
Art Direction
Adobe Photoshop