Chaos + Order = Chaordic

Here ill show you (using Illustrator) how to recursively apply patterns to themselves to produce strange and wonderful fractal patterns with many possible creative applications.

Printing from vector graphics is great as you can produce huge banners where details look very vivid; Images produced with this technique could be great for creating micro details, glitches and fidgets that would make larger graphics more interesting when viewed close up... Such as graphic bus wraps.

For the sake of demonstration, i am using a preset cliche 'banner' from the brush patterns library in Illustrator but it should be mentioned in the brush menu there is an option for a 'new brush' which if you select 'pattern brush' from the sub-folder, can turn any group of vectors you've created or sampled into a brush for which you can use this technique.

Thank You TechShop Detroit for helping me with this design :) www.techshop.ws

Step 1: Start With Some Vectors

Draw some Vectors you would like the patterns to grow on.

Step 2: Apply Brush

Select the vectors then go into the 'brushes' menu and select the pattern you would like to apply. In this image it shows the banner wraping to the vector. Once you've applied the brush; Try scaling the vectors to see how it effects the image.... The larger the vectors, the more of the banner wrap it will take to cover them; The ratio of the underpinning vectors to the wrap will change.

Step 3: 'Expand Apperence'

The next step is to change the pattern wrap into vectors and loose the underpinning vectors. To do this, just select the vectors and go to the Object tab then the sub tab 'Expand Appearance'. You should notice that the pattern brush becomes editable vectors.

Step 4: Reaply the Pattern Brush to the Expanded Form

Now, select the vectors you just created and apply the same (or different) brush ; This will create a far more complex version of the last image within roughly the same guidelines.

At this point try scaling the vectors again and you will get a sense of the same strange ratio between the underpinning vectors and the pattern brush applied. The two images in this step are the same pattern iteration just at different scales.

Step 5: Rinse ∞ Repeat

Once you've figured out the scale, select all the vectors again & 'Expand Appearance' and your will get a image many times more complex than the last, but still within the original perimeters sort of.

Continue this cycle until your computer crashes. If you follow this tutorial, let me know how many times you can compound your pattern successfully.