Creating graphic tiling patterns with MS Excel to decorate art work

For people who like computer images and digital art, those intriguing patterns of images that repeat themselves over and over creating the illusion of a continuous picture pose at the same time a challenge and an stetical pleasure.

A challenge because one tends to visually try to find where the pattern begins and ends, how those repeating images assemble to create a continous image and to imagine how one could build a similar but better pattern.

The stetical pleasure comes from the fact that the pattern builds a complete picture from very small pieces, that work toghether armoniously.

The first time I tried to assemble a pattern like these, I used Paint and some others basic tools bundled with Windows. The result was good but very hard to repeat. So I thought there should be a more efficient way.

Using the commercial graphic design tools available was like trying to kill mosquitoes with cannions, I mean, we should not need such an advanced and complex and expensive tool just to build simple repeating patterns. So one day it hit me I could use MS Excel!!

And just after a few experiments I realized how easy it could be to build the patterns using only what is available in most computers (even the oldest ones) around the world: Windows and Office (MS Excel).

I will try to pass my expertise in this lens.

Some samples...

Some patterns built with this technique

Sample patterns: My company agreed to let me use some space in the web server to show some samples of tiling patterns that can be built with the techniques exposed.
Animated patterns: Animated patterns can also be built with this technique. Animations are compositions of several frames, so all is needed is to use several worksheets to create the animation.

Starting up

Patterns of repeating images are useful to decorate art compositions, web pages, or graphic designs, they are visually attractive and present a challenge in theirselves to the mind of the viewer, whom is challenged to find the place or places where the pattern repeats and the designer who is challenged to build an image that leads to believe that the covered space is a continuous.
Repeating patterns are hard to design because their boundaries should be such that the left border exactly continues the drawing in the right, and the upper one the lower. And the whole looks like a picture, not an aggregate of images.
There are some rather obvious, images that can conform to this requirement. Images contained exactly in a frame can be repeated just repeating the frame, but they won't look continuous.
Other can easily be assembled: crosses, mirrored or inverted images, etc.
The ones that really pose a challenge are those that present some overlapping, text messages, non-simmetric forms, etc.
In this page I will present a method to use MS Excel to construct these patterns, no matter how complex they might look. MS Excel is quite common and a lot of people use it, so that's why I use it, but once the basic principle is identified, any spreadsheet program that can handle graphics and images to certain degree, can be used.

Preparing the worksheet

From this point and on I will describe the process as an algorithm, numbering each step.
Pictures of the process will help you do it yourself.

1. Start with an empty worksheet

reformatted so that all cells look like squares, not rectangles.

Start Excel with a blank worksheet and resize the columns so that cells look like squares with the same width and height. They don't have to be exactly the same width and height, it is enough for our purposes that all cells are the same size and that they look like squares.
This refformatting is needed to avoid waste of space. The actual size of the squares is of little relevance.

2. Place the graphics,

images and text for the pattern

Place the graphics, images or text messages you wish to have in the pattern. Do any rotation, color editing, text formatting or effect application.
This will conform the pattern. Remember that the pattern will repeat several times, so it should not be excesively big. The smaller the pattern the faster it will load, the easier it will be reproduced and adjusted, etc.
But... this is where creativity has to be applied !!

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3. Select the cells

that contain the pattern

Select a group of cells (an excel range) that cover completely the figures of the pattern. This will be a box but not neccesarily an square.
Note the width and height of the box in cells (rows and columns), check where it ends (its boundaries).
This is not yet the pattern, but we are getting closer.

4. Copy the base pattern

and form a grid

Copy the selected cells twice to the right, each copy must be side by side with the next one, then select the three copies and copy the entire row inmediately below twice too.
You should have a grid of nine copies of the base pattern.
It is very important that each copy is placed exactly side by side with the previous one, it is also very important that the images be not moved, resized, adjusted or changed in any way, once the copies have been done.
We are relying in Excel's exactitude to build the pattern (that's why the pattern cannot be built in any other office application), because our guide for the doing the copies are the cells' array.

5. Create an offset

in the pattern

Copy the row (the three original images) again but now don't respect the bondaries, don't put this new copy side by side with the others, put it over the others.
Remember that what we want is challenge the viewer to find where the pattern repeats, if the images are simply side by side then there won't be such challenge.
There is no rule on how to achieve this, so you will have to experiment. Do a copy, if it overlaps too much then undo it and try a new position, we don't have to respect any geometrical rule now.
Once you have placed the over-placed copy, make a new copy side by side with it, if you don't the pattern's borders won't match.
Note in the picture how the repeating pattern can be selected now and is exactly a box of the size of the original pattern.

6. Copy the pattern

to Paint

Select the cells that contain the pattern and copy them.
Start Paint (MS Paint, PaintBrush, any) and resize the picture to 1 pixel x 1 pixel. This is done so that when the pattern is pasted the image will grow to exactly fit the size of the pattern.

7. Remove the "ghost" lines

passed by excel through the clipboard

There are a couple of extra lines above and to the left of the image, they are not visible at first sight, but if you zoom the image the lines will appear exactly in the left and upper borders of the image.
These lines have to be removed otherwise they will distort the tiled pattern.
The easiest way I have found to remove the lines is to turn the image 180 degrees and remove one line (a pixel high) below, with the image handlers, and a line (a pixel wide) to the right, also with the image handlers.

8. Do any finishing needed

like resize, smooth borders, etc.

The pattern is basically ready, but as you may have noticed the one in this exercise is not a particularly creative one...
There are some details that you should check:
1. Excel draw cells borders and those will appear in the picture, study carefully if you want those borders, you can change their color or just have Excel not show them.
2. The size of the pattern matters, if you can resize the final image it will be better.
3. The pattern borders are not smooth, that can present some visual perturbation. Use an image tool like Photo Editor o Picture Manager (both included in different versions of Office) to smooth the borders.

And... Try it !!!

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Creating graphic tiling patterns with MS Excel to decorate art work