06 · Mosaic pattern
Eight counties, one community, a mosaic of parts
Draft for review · principle and latitude proposed by Hyperakt, Sep 2026
The pattern begins as a map. Eight counties, drawn soft, fitted together, each its own color.
That's the origin story, and it's worth keeping: these are the places the Area Foundation serves. But in use, the idea matters more than the geography. What the pattern says is that this community is a mosaic of distinct parts that only make sense together.
- Bandera
- Bexar
- Kendall
- Comal
- Guadalupe
- Medina
- Wilson
- Atascosa
The principle
Read this first
A diverse mosaic of parts, coming together. That's the whole rule. Everything below is latitude, not law.
- Shapes are organic and soft. Rounded, hand-cut, slightly irregular. Never a straight edge, a perfect circle, or a sharp corner.
- Parts touch. Pieces abut or overlap like tiles. Scattered shapes with gaps between them read as confetti, not mosaic.
- Color comes from the palette. Any step of any family, plus cream and navy. Mix a 900 with a 300 in the same cluster; that contrast is the energy.
- Complexity is yours to set. Two pieces or twelve. A quiet corner or a full bleed. Choose what the layout needs.
- Coverage is yours to set. The pattern can be a frame, a band, a corner, or the entire ground. It shouldn't compete with the content it's holding.
- It needn't be the map. Recognizable county shapes are welcome, especially where the eight-county story is the point. Elsewhere, any cluster that follows the rules above is on brand.
How a crop is made
Three derivations from the deck
Zoom into the map, take a square, and let the edges of that square become a frame. Each derivation is one crop; there are as many as you can find.
Take a square
Move a window across the cluster until three to five pieces meet inside it. The crop becomes a tile: a social background, a section divider, a cover.
Let it be simple
Two pieces meeting on a diagonal is enough. The quietest crops carry the most content, and most pages want one of these.
Turn it into a frame
Push the crop to the edges and leave the middle cream. The pieces peek in from the corners and the page stays readable.
Four levels of color
From the social system
The deck defines four tiers for social, and they work everywhere: one solid, two to three colors, four or more, and a four-plus-color frame around cream.
1 · SolidOne core color, no pattern. The calmest tile. Type sits in cream.
2 · Two to three colorsA crop with a couple of pieces. Room for a headline.
3 · Four or moreThe full mosaic. Best for covers, event graphics, and photography frames.
4 · FramePieces at the corners, cream in the middle. The workhorse for pages with real content.
Tiers 2 to 4 above are drawn in CSS to show the idea. In production, crop from the real cluster files on the Downloads page.
Coverage
Proposed
Three habits cover most layouts. Match the pattern's presence to how much the page has to say.
Full bleed
Covers, posters, tote bags
A band or corner
One-pagers, section openers, slides
A glimpse
Reports, letters, forms
Don't
Don't scatterGaps between pieces turn a mosaic into confetti.
Don't square it offNo straight edges, sharp corners, or grids.
Don't outlinePieces are solid fills, never keylines.
Don't blendColors meet at an edge. No gradients between pieces.
Don't invent colorsEvery piece is a palette value.
We unite donors, nonprofits, scholars, and community leaders to expand opportunity across the region.
Don't set body text on itGive reading text a solid panel.
Don't shrink it to noiseSmall tiles need two or three big pieces, not the whole map.
Don't label it in the wildCounty names belong here, in the story, not in the applied pattern.
The county map, the large cluster for cropping, and the three derivation diagrams are on the Downloads page as SVG. Crop from the large cluster; it's built at full page size so every piece stays crisp.
