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Subtle Patterns

subtlepatterns.com

408 pointsbenologist49 comments

Subtle Patterns has been around for a pretty long while now. It's a great site. My designer colleagues use it quite a bit.

The only thing I wish it did was show the pattern size by default in the description. Some of them show it, but not all. And in my experience they vary a good bit.

Also, on the Github page, there is a .pat zip of all the patterns which makes it even better https://github.com/subtlepatterns/SubtlePatterns

The reason why this is hitting HN again is because his domain was stolen and he has been able to recover it.

Actually I just submitted it because it's very cool. Share this mysterious story with everyone?

Here you can see the details about that incidence.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531819

Does anyone have any concrete information on what happened and how it was resolved? At that link, I only see HNers saying that it definitely wasn't domain expiration that was the problem, but no more information beyond that.

On his twitter[1] he says the domain was hijacked. Couldn't find anything else on the topic.

[1] https://twitter.com/subtlepattern

What license are the images? There is a license mention on the bottom of the website but to me that seems to cover the website only, not the downloaded images. It would be great if each zip would include a proper license.

The github repo[1] says they are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[1]: https://github.com/subtlepatterns/SubtlePatterns

ShareAlike means they're unusable for commercial applications. I suppose you can still use them on a website, but I'm not sure how much of the website you'd also have to make CC-BY-SA.

Their FAQ implies a more liberal license, though:

http://subtlepatterns.com/about/

No, ShareAlike means you have to distribute them under the same licence. Unless there is a NoCommercial, that doesn't mean you can't sell them, you just aren't allowed to change to a more restrictive licence. IANAL.

For something less subtle see http://www.patterncooler.com/

Don't miss their ultraswanky svg editor thingy! http://www.patterncooler.com/editor/

Also this: http://www.colourlovers.com/patterns/most-loved/all-time/met...

I had thought he'd given up on the site the other day, and just started using the git repo instead. Glad it was just a blip instead.

Hopefully he'll blog about what happened.

Hey, Atle Mo here – founder of subtlepatterns.com.

What happened was that some guy some how managed to hijack the domain (ICANN is still working on a report to see what happened). He said he got it legally, but "would be willing to sell it back for €2.000. Right. So I sent in all the documentation I had to the legal department of Instra, where he moved the domain. They gave the domain back to me right away, and like I mentioned, ICANN is still working out a few things, but it will be back to my full ownership hopefully within a few weeks. I can still access the admin site, so it's business as usual. I'm thankful for all the support I got from Twitter users, email etc. Cheers!

Congratulations for getting the site back. And if I may use the opportunity, a heartfelt "thank you" for providing this resource. It has been ultra-helpful in the past for quick prototyping of good looking web pages.

Glad you have your site back.

Let us know when ICANN has their report!

Nice to see they got their domain back.

Agreed. Does anyone know the backstory?

That's the actual reason someone posted it here, right?

I believe so. Iirc, someone had somehow hijacked a transfer of it.

Nope, OP said he was posting as it was cool. Which it is, but it's nice to see that they sorted the domain issues so everyones a winner.

It's a real gem, especially for someone who isn't as aesthetically astute, like me. I used it on a couple of websites I've been working on recently. [1][2]

[1] http://tweetfad.com/

[2] http://db.uwaterloo.ca/dmc2013/

Is this your site?

The first texture looks like it's broken because there is no border. I thought it wasn't loading at all, but it was just the exact same as the background on the site.

Edit: nevermind.. I must have clicked directly on the preview button when i changed focus or something.

Sadly no, a friend of mine gave me the link to look at because I was testing a new layout on my api docs page that had a lot of white background.

Sorry to go a little off topic, but I'm wondering if someone remember a background pattern/texture generator posted here on HN a few months a go. I lost the bookmark. I only remember it has a dark background. Thanks.

Wow... they're so subtle I completely missed them.

I thought the page was broken for mobile. And then it took me a second pass to realize it was in fact not broken on desktop too!

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3091846

Some of these are quite strong and contrasty and very repetitive in a small scale and thus slightly migraine inducing.

With the horizontal repetition they also mess with the angle of your eyes / distance perception (as there are multiple transpositions where they correlate perfectly).

I like subtle, very random and smooth patterns a lot.

This is the kind of website that makes me want to go redesign a website for no reason than to fiddle with these patterns.

I found a chrome plugin that tries the patterns on any website quickly. Pretty handy while choosing something I guess.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cnhhinfdmnakglphga...

Great, now I have to clean my monitor.

Related, if you wanted to make your own patterns (and then perhaps upload to subtlepatterns.com :-)) check out this iphone app: http://patternshooter.com/

I'm strongly reminded of the old Windows 3.1 tiled patterns.

"Back Pattern" flickers horribly when I scroll. Which makes me wonder whether the other patterns will have a similar flicker on other displays.

It's really awesome that they thought to include retina versions. I really hope this becomes the norm, esp. with bootstrap etc.

I've been using a it for a while. Downloading their PSD patterns make your design life a lot easier.

Thanks for posting this excellent free resource - bookmarked for definite future use :)

I think I need a monitor with better color fidelity. Half of these look like whiteness.

It'd be cool to read about what did they have to do after it was hijacked.

i don't know if it's my monitor or colour settings or what, but some of them don't seem to do anything when i click the preview button (e.g. "straws" and "swirl" from the current front page)

They also include a "@2x" version for retina displays. Pretty nifty.

I really like all of these. They just feel good.

Awesome to see it back again!

dot_clean would come in handy before uploading files from a mac.

Beautiful, thanks.

These all make me think my monitor is dirty. Why is this a feature?

Also, why are they called "patterns" and not "textures"?

This is fantastic, thanks!

these are great. thanks

these are a great set. thanks

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