Uppercase publishes a quarterly magazine as well as books for the creative and curious. We're inspired by design, craft, illustration, and vintage.

Patterns, patterns and more patterns! Welcome to the fifth edition of the UPPERCASE Surface Pattern Design Guide.

When designing a surface pattern, your choice of media, technology, theme, motif, colour palette and scale are only some of the starting technical variables. You also have to choose the method of the repeat: block (motifs arranged in a grid, also called “full drop”), half drop (staggered mid-way), arrangement by brick, nestled tiled shapes (diamond, hexagon or ogee) or simply randomly tossed (scattered) motifs.