Japanese wagara pattern generator

Eleven traditional Japanese patterns, drawn to order. Choose seigaiha waves, asanoha hemp leaves, shippo circles, kikko tortoise shells or another classic, set the line width and colours, and export a seamless tile as SVG, PNG or CSS.

Open in the generator How it works

Seigaiha wave pattern: rows of concentric arcs in green, gold and dark blue

What is wagara?

Wagara (和柄) means “Japanese patterns”: the geometric designs used for centuries on kimono, fabrics, ceramics and lacquerware. Most of them are built from a single shape repeated on a grid, and each has a name and a traditional meaning.

Seigaiha (“blue ocean waves”) is a field of overlapping arcs, asanoha is a six-pointed star that resembles a hemp leaf, shippo (“seven treasures”) is a lattice of overlapping circles, and kikko is a tortoise-shell grid of hexagons. Yagasuri looks like rows of arrow feathers, and uroko like fish or dragon scales.

How the generator builds them

Each of the 11 patterns is built from its own construction: waves from stacked rings, asanoha and kikko from a triangle or hexagon lattice, yagasuri from a row of feathers that point alternately up and down. The result is cut to the exact repeat, so the tile is seamless.

You choose the pattern and the generator draws it with the palette you set. The rings, line width and inner shapes can be adjusted for the patterns where they make sense.

What you can adjust

Pattern — seigaiha, asanoha, shippo, kikko, uroko, yagasuri, kagome, tatewaku, hishi, same and sayagata.
Rings per wave — how many concentric arcs each wave has (seigaiha and same); nested diamonds for hishi.
Line thickness — from fine hairlines to bold strokes.
Inner hexagon — the size of the inner shape in kikko, and the feather height in yagasuri.
Colours — any palette.