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Layout & composition · Free composition

All-over field

No focal point; the whole surface is filled evenly, like a textile.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under layout & composition: how is the picture plane organised?

styles make it: 69
as a defining choice: 11
as a usual one: 28
now and then: 30
avoid it: 8

Styles defined by it 11

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Traditionc. 690–present · Middle East & North Africa, South Asia, Southern EuropeA visual system shared across the Islamic world in which proportioned calligraphy, compass-and-straightedge geometry and the vegetal arabesque carry meaning and beauty in place of figurative imagery.
Batik Pattern Tradition1600–present · Southeast AsiaThe Javanese wax-resist textile tradition in which hot wax is drawn with a canting or stamped with a copper cap, then dyed in successive baths to build layered all-over patterns.
African Wax & Fancy Print1880–present · Sub-Saharan Africa, Western EuropeIndustrially printed cotton made for West and Central African markets, first by Dutch and British mills that imitated Javanese batik with resin resist, and later by African mills.
Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth1900–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe mud-dyed cotton cloth of the Bamana and other Malian peoples, in which the ground rather than the motif is painted: cloth dyed yellow with n'gallama leaves is covered around each sign with fermented iron-rich mud, and the unpainted signs are then bleached pale.
Taiwan Floral Cloth (Huabu)1950–present · East AsiaCheap printed cotton covered edge to edge in large, full-blown peonies with lotuses, phoenixes, dragons, mandarin ducks, small florets and auspicious emblems on saturated vermilion, bright pink or sky-blue grounds.
Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism)1951–present · Northern EuropeThe printed-cotton modernism of Marimekko, founded in Helsinki in 1951 by Armi and Viljo Ratia out of Viljo's printing firm Printex.
Dazibao (Big-Character Posters)1957–1980 · East AsiaHandwritten wall posters in large brush characters that turned the walls of Mao-era China into a public forum for criticism, denunciation and, at the Democracy Wall, dissent.
Op Art Graphics1960–1975 · Global / networkedA 1960s style that turned perceptual research into graphic effect: precisely drawn lines, checks, concentric rings and modular grids, usually black and white or complementaries of equal value, that seem to vibrate, swell or move.
Western Desert Iconography1971–present · OceaniaThe acrylic painting movement that took form at Papunya in 1971, when men there painted the Honey Ant Dreaming on the school wall and then on board, carrying an older practice of sand, body and ceremonial designs into lasting form. 'Western Desert' is an umbrella name: the movement also includes Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Arrernte painters of the Central Desert.
Polish Information Picture Book (Dwie Siostry)2008–present · Eastern EuropeMostly large-format information picture books made since 2008 by the Warsaw publisher Dwie Siostry with young illustrators led by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizieliński, graduates of the city's Academy of Fine Arts: atlases, cross-sections, labyrinths, activity books and wordless seek-and-find board books.
Hong Kong Protest Art (Umbrella Movement to the 2019–20 Protests)2014–2020 · East AsiaThe graphics of Hong Kong's democracy protests, from the 2014 Umbrella Movement to the national security law of 2020, in two linked media.

Styles that often use it 28

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 30

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Pattern & repeatin 52 of 69
Repetition & rhythmin 65 of 69
Textile & craftin 41 of 69
Flat hierarchyin 34 of 69
Horror vacuiin 51 of 69
Abundant decorationin 36 of 69

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in layout & composition