A couple of weeks ago I posted 20 free vector patterns that I had made (you can see them here) and the response was so positive that I decided to make another 20 available in this 2nd volume. This time, I’m focusing on straight lines: radial lines, horizontal lines, vertical lines… all sorts of line patterns that would be difficult or time-consuming to create on your own.
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
Just like I published last time, here are a few examples of how you might use these patterns. These first three show some of these patterns placed into InDesign frames:
Next, this line pattern was opened in Illustrator and individual objects were colorized:
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. Just 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).
(Note that two of these — numbers 12 and 13 — are actually horizontal lines, but I had to rotate them because of the wide dimensions of the thumbnail image.)
How Were They Made?
Several of these were built using an InDesign plug-in called PatternMaker, from Teacup Software. Most others were written in custom PostScript. (My wife probably think I’m crazy, as I would wake up and sit coding instead of reading the newspaper.) The fun thing about PostScript code is that it that it converts beautifully into EPS and PDF, and is very compact. For example, some of the PDF files above are actually far smaller in file size than their little PNG thumbnail previews! You can do a lot in 1K of PostScript.
If you use these patterns, I’d love to hear about it! Put links to graphics in the comments below! If there are other patterns you wish you had, let us know, too.
Enjoy!
This article was last modified on June 13, 2025
This article was first published on August 15, 2013
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