Stepped fret pattern generator
A spiral whose straight runs are staircases. Choose how many turns it makes, how wide the band is, how many motifs fill the tile, and whether alternate motifs are turned over and take a second color, and export a seamless stepped fret as SVG, PNG or CSS.
Open in the generator How it works
Stairs that turn into a spiral
The stepped fret is one of the oldest motifs of Mesoamerica. It appears on friezes, pottery and textiles, and the stonework of Mitla in Oaxaca is famous for panels of stepped frets set in mosaic. Its stairs recall stepped pyramids, and the hook that winds into a spiral gives the pattern its movement.
Stepped spirals turn up in many other places too, and Ornamatic’s version is a generic one. It does not copy any one frieze or claim to read its meaning.
How the generator builds them
The motif is built on a grid of square cells, so every edge is a crisp step. The spiral starts in the middle and winds outward along four diagonal directions, each run a staircase one cell wide, and the runs grow longer with every half turn so that the band never touches itself.
The motifs are repeated in a grid with an empty cell between them. Every second one can be turned by a half turn, and can take the second color, so that neighbors interlock like a pair of hooks. The grid repeats exactly, so the tile is seamless.
What you can adjust
- Turns — from one to four turns of the spiral.
- Band width — the width of the stepped band, in cells.
- Motifs across — one to four motifs in a row and a column.
- Half-turn — turn every second motif.
- Second color — give every second motif the second color.
- Cell gap — a thin gap between the cells, for a mosaic look.
- Colors — a ground and up to two colors; any palette.
Export and use
Download the seamless tile as PNG or SVG, or copy a ready CSS background. The patterns you create are free to use, personally or commercially.
