Have you noticed the hexagons everywhere these days? They were rampant in the design of the most recent Hunger Games movie. Justin Seeley was going on about hexagons in a post on his blog. People are pinning them. Well, I figured it’s time to start making some hexagon patterns, too… and you can download them for free!
A couple of these are similar to the ones I offered in 20 free vector patterns, but I think these are even cooler. (Of course, there are other freebies at 20 free line patterns and also 11 free halftone spot patterns.)
Note: The small patterns below are just “thumbnails” of the patterns. Each pattern file is a PDF file big enough to cover either an A4 or Letter-sized page. (Of course, because they’re vector, you can scale them up or down as much as you want and they’ll still be high-quality.) You can Place the PDF files in InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, or almost any other program. You can also open each PDF in Illustrator, allowing you to go in and tweak the lines to your heart’s content.
Some Examples
Here are a few examples of how you might use these patterns:
Downloads
As I said, each of these patterns is a full page. The graphics below are just samples cut from the middle of the pattern. Click on each image to download its PDF and see the whole page. Or you may want to right-click on the image and choose Save As (or Save Link As, depending on your web browser).
If you use these patterns, I’d love to hear about it! Put links to graphics in the comments below! And if there are other patterns you wish you had, let us know, too.
Enjoy!
This article was last modified on March 23, 2023
This article was first published on January 29, 2014
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Thanks man!Really helpful to make superhero outfit textures!
If you “expand appearance” on those patterns or you probably just need to save out the pdf as “illustrator default” to correct the issue. I would like to use these patterns too, but they dont work in illustrator.
Oh my! I used the PDF as a template and was able to recreate the hexagon pattern with the Polygon Frame Tool in InDesign. Grouped them and then selected Copy and Paste Into to fit inside outlined type – like the “Q” in the article – so it worked out! I am a happy camper! Great idea! Thanks!!
Interesting! When I open all the rotating hexagons, they open in Illustrator just fine. But you’re right about the tiled patterns. That’s fascinating! I think it’s because the tile is based on a rather complex math function instead of some of the earlier patterns.
I’ve spent 20 minutes trying to get it to work, but it won’t. Sorry! I suppose those should only be used to place in InDesign or place in Illustrator or Photoshop (not edit in Illustrator).
All 10 Free Vector Hexagon patterns are not working. The PDFs download fine. I can place the PDFs in Adobe Mac InDesign CS5 and Illustrator CS5 and see the entire pattern. But when I open the PDF in Illustrator only half the pattern appears. Every other hexagon is either missing or overlapping and looks nothing like the PDF. Hope this helps. Thank you!
Please tell us which files (all of them? just specific ones?) are causing trouble. Is it just in Illustrator, or in other programs? (For example, I know that some PDF readers might not handle the codes properly, though Adobe’s should.)
Hi Mike,
All of the patterns are downloading and open but only half the pattern appears. I would like to use the hexagons. Not sure why I am haveing difficulties with these but not the others.
Hi Patty
The patterns seem to be OK. I just downloaded and opened several of them. Was there a specific one you had trouble with?
I was able to download and open the dot and line patterns but these hexagon patterns once downloaded and opened in Illustrator are missing half the pattern and are not useable. Would love to use them, can they be fixed? Thanks!