SymmetryWorks is on Creative Bloq's list of The 15 best Adobe Illustrator plugins: "SymmetryWorks isn't a casual purchase. It's a specialist tool, but if you work with repeat graphics and complex patterns, it'll save you a considerable amount of time."
SymmetryWorks also makes Sitepoint's 5 Best Productivity Plugins for Adobe Illustrator: "Generating simple rectangular-based patterns in Illustrator is usually relatively easy but the creation of more complex patterns can become a nightmare if you don't have the proper tool." — Enter SymmetryWorks. Thanks +AlexWalker1969 and @sala_simone, we are flattered!
SymmetryWorks makes Vector Guru's list of 5 Amazing Illustrator Plug-ins: "This Illustrator plugin would be of great use to apparel and textile designers, though any designer interested in creating patterns and image tiles may find it indispensable. SymmetryWorks makes a tedious and calculated task of creating patterns a piece of cake."
SymmetryWorks patterns created for the Transformational Creases project are on display at the Runway 7 show in the Buffalo State Campbell Student Union Hall. The project, spearheaded by Dr. Lynn Boorady and Elaine Polvinen, MFA of the Fashion and Textile Technology Department, tasked students with developing patterns that camouflage the natural wrinkles in cotton by merging seamless wrinkle repeats with creative vector repeats and then recoloring the designs to custom colors using a variety of masking techniques. Artlandia provided an award for best student design. CW23 WNLO is reporting on the preparations for the show.
The popular website Creative Pro announces SymmetryWorks 6: "... if you really love working with patterns and use them often, you can't beat the creative options and time-saving features you get from a dedicated tool like Artlandia SymmetryWorks... SymmetryWorks offers lots of advantages over Illustrator's built-in pattern creation tools, including 17 types of symmetry, counterchange patterns, and many other efficiency features." Read the full announcement.
Turns out SymmetryWorks has long-time fans at UK's Creative Bloq and even has been one of their favorite Illustrator plug-ins—thank you! The Bloq now gives a detailed intro to SymmetryWorks 6 with its "new way of automatically creating patterns—by adding colour reversals to simple geometric transformations. This technique balances "positive" and "negative" counterparts and automatically generates spectacular, easy-on-the-eye patterns."
PC World review "SymmetryMill lets you turn any image into a beautiful repeating pattern" awards SymmetryMill 4.5 out of 5 stars: "SymmetryMill interface feels like it was built for light-hearted experimentation. Everything is very responsive, and the image changes as you drag the control path around, resize it, change its symmetry type, or even rotate the source image. That means you can play around until you find a pattern you like... If you have to create patterns as part of your work, SymmetryMill is one of those rare applications that makes work feel like play... Bottom line: With its seventeen kaleidoscope lenses, SymmetryMill turns pattern creation into a fun, playful activity." Read the full review.
MakeUseOf puts SymmetryMill in the Cool Websites and Tools category: "Creating visually appealing patterns and textures can be very complicated. There are numerous desktop applications that graphics designers use for this purpose. But these applications feature complex interfaces and tools that take long to get familiarized with. If you are looking for a tool that helps you create patterns in an easier way, then you need to look for something made specifically with user friendliness in mind. You need an app that offers intuitive controls and lets you work with patterns and images that you already have. All of this is offered by a web service called SymmetryMill." The full review is here.
An artist and a blogger Sloan Nota's review of SymmetryMill "A Powerful Pattern-Making Venue Online:" "Design repeats with ordered Greek simplicity or Mardi Gras flamboyance, it's all there in the rules. You start with any image, a checkerboard, Mona Lisa, Jackson Pollack tangle. Then take a 3-, 4- or 5-sided cookie cutter piece of it. The software knows the tiling rules—you get to play." Read the full review here.
Elaine Polvinen, a respected fashion and textile design educator and a Professor of fashion textile technology at Buffalo State, adopted Artlandia SymmetryWorks and SymmetryMill for her Pattern Design for Industry course:
"The Artlandia SymmetryMill and Artlandia SymmetryWorks applications are excellent additions to the Adobe Surface Design for Industry class. These applications enable students to create an unlimited number of tonal and vector repeats in a very short time." Read the full article on Elaine's blog.
The Design & Publishing Center has reviewed SymmetryMill: "For years, we've talked about the powers of Artlandia's powerful and fun pattern design software. Now they have launched an awesome new web application for making and sharing repeating patterns -- online! In your browser! It's called Artlandia SymmetryMill, and if you ever use or need patterns in your graphics, you want to try this!" Read the full review here.
Kimberly Kight's new book "A Field Guide to Fabric Design," a comprehensive resource for fabric design and printing, highlights SymmetryShop and SymmetryWorks in the "Specialized Textile Design Software" section: "Artlandia produces affordable plug-ins for Photoshop and Illustrator... [that] build dozens of pattern and repeat types from editable "seed" motifs at the touch of a button directly onto the screen; there is no need to create individual pattern swatches and proof the pattern by drawing and filling new shapes. When editing the seed motif of a repeat, all other instances of that motif are instantly updated. The LivePresets plug-in... allows the user to create "live" (editable) pattern swatches. Link the swatches to digitally draped sewn products, and the rendering updates before your eyes as you edit the pattern." Learn more about Kim's book here.
Making "amazing patterns fast and easy" is what's hot about SymmetryWorks, according to the Layers Magazine. With each new version, "the plug-in gets better and better" and SymmetryWorks 5 attains the magazine's highest 5 star rating: "SymmetryWorks is an absolute must for anyone working with textile, wallpaper, and wrapping paper designs, to name just a few industries that could benefit from this plug-in." Read the full review here.
Elisa Sassi, an illustrator and artist, believes that she could have written the SymmetryWorks 5 review "Operation: Pattern" in the Brazilian magazine "Mac+" in just one word: "brilliant". "...Anyone who has had to create, by hand, a repeated pattern, knows how painful it is [but] with SymmetryWorks, the time spent is infinitely smaller... There's no need to generate previews to see the end result of your pattern. SymmetryWorks instantly generates the result while you're working on it... SymmetryWorks is quite consistent, stable and recommended for any professional who works with the development of patterns."
"The remarkable world of patterns" in Photoshop Tips & Tricks introduces SymmetryShop 3 and profiles several talented Artlandia users: artist and photographer Dr. Karen Miller Anderson, author and weaver Alice Schlein, author and illustrator Robin Wood, and illustrator and designer Jenny B. Harris.
Grant Friedman, the author of Colorburned, a popular blog dedicated to graphic design resources, tutorials, and more, is a longtime SymmetryWorks fan:
"It won't take you long to figure out how amazing this plug-in is. Just draw an object, open the SymmetryWorks palette, and click 'make'. Your pattern will be created instantly and you can then begin playing with different settings to achieve different results." Read the full review is here.
The PatternHead, DT&G, INDEZINE, and IT-Enquirer blogs have also posted reviews of SymmetryWorks 5 and SymmetryWorks LP. You can see the reviews here: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Erik Vlietinck (of the IT-Enquirer) mentions our market leadership. Thanks, we are thrilled!
Smashing Magazine included SymmetryShop in its
"Ultimate Collection of Useful Photoshop Plug-Ins". The Ultimate Collection is here.
"By introducing a live, editable variety of formerly 'static' Illustrator presets, such as symbols and pattern swatches, LivePresets increases productivity and opens new possibilities for the efficient use of repeating design elements." The full citation is here.
The reviewer at INDEZINE commends Artlandia LivePresets: "The first time I used LivePresets, I was amazed by the possibilities and options—use LivePresets and the patterns you edit... update interactively as you edit, thus creating a workflow that's almost too good to be true." Read the full review here.
IT-Enquirer has awarded its 5-star rating to LivePresets: "The plug-in was a joy to work with, very easy to understand and use."
The Design & Publishing Center has found a novel application for LivePresets—creating live typography in patterns. The idea works because "... the plug-in lets you edit pattern swatches and symbols without jumping through hoops. You simply edit a 'live' swatch and the plug-in automatically updates all the artwork painted with that swatch. Same for symbols."
SymmetryWorks 4 made a list of Computer Art's Ten Best Illustrator Plug-ins:
"Textiles, greetings cards and other designs that require repeating patterns are much easier with SymmetryWorks... When a job requires a repeat pattern, it's a godsend, and good value." The citation is here.
HOW magazine's June 2008 issue on creativity features SymmetryShop 2: "This nifty Adobe Photoshop plug-in automates the creation of all types of surface designs, including tilings, textile and wallpaper designs, optical patterns, web page backgrounds and patterns for other applications."
Layers awards its 4.5-star rating to SymmetryWorks 4: "If you're involved with any pattern-related industry (such as the textile industry), or even if you just like making patterns for ad designs, you really need to look at this plug-in."
SymmetryShop 2 gets 4 stars from Australian PC World. "... if you regularly create patterns for textiles or fashion, it can make a huge difference to your work."
Dynamic Graphics announces SymmetryShop 2 in issue 2, 2008: "Artlandia's Photoshop plug-in for pattern design automates the creation of surface designs like optical patterns, wallpaper, textiles and tiling."
SymmetryWorks 4 is announced in the Layers magazine (March/April, 2007). The magazine mentions the new capabilities for working with replicas (live copies) that "automate the creation of new classes of pattern designs and provide new ways to quickly and automatically add repetition to patterns."
A SymmetryShop tutorial in Computer Arts, 2006, Issue 128, highlights the main feature of the plug-in, "SymmetryShop's patterns remain fully editable throughout, so it's possible at any point, even after the design is complete, to revisit any previous step and practically rebuild the pattern. This kind of flexibility is a designer's heaven."
The Computer Arts review of SymmetryShop, "Powerful Pattern Generation at the Click of a Button" gives special points to the plug-in's "excellent, easy-to-use interface" and its ability to create "quick, editable patterns." The review also describes SymmetryShop as a "very specialist" tool. "There's clearly a lot of maths and geometry at work creating the patterns, but the beauty of SymmetryShop is the easy way that any changes to the pattern settings are previewed for you before committing. In fact, you don't really have to understand the technicalities of what's going on at all, just tweaking the settings and sliders can create a whole host of different effects right before your eyes."
A SymmetryShop review in Photoshop User, a magazine of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), October/November, 2006, concludes, "If you do a lot of pattern design, this is a good addition to your toolbox."
Publish magazine from the Netherlands (No. 5, 2006) gives SymmetryShop its 4.5 star rating with the conclusion, "For creating complicated repetitive patterns in Photoshop, SymmetryShop without a doubt is a must-have."
"Passionate for Patterns?" Dynamic Graphics, OCT/NOV, 2006 announces SymmetryShop, "Tilings, optical patterns, backgrounds, and more are created with ease...."
Artlandia SymmetryShop gets the highest rating from IT-Enquirer, which previously awarded the same rating to SymmetryWorks. Says the staff writer, "I was very impressed with SymmetryShop. I was with SymmetryWorks as well, but SymmetryShop goes an extra step, by enabling you to make complex and unique patterns from bitmap images or parts thereof. The quality of the plug-in is outstanding, the potential of the results simply awesome."
In his INDEZINE review, Geetesh Bajaj notes that "Photoshop by itself has few options to create repeating symmetrical patterns—and those options can be time-consuming as well. Artlandia SymmetryShop aims to fulfill that void—and once you understand how it works, it's everything you could have wanted in an automatic pattern creator."
Simon Eccles gives a four-star rating to SymmetryShop in a DIGIT magazine review, noting that the plug-in "has a wide variety of uses, from creating commercial wallpapers to seamless textures for 3D models."
"The new, feature-rich SymmetryShop plug-in" is announced on plugs-n-pixels. The site displays a stream of patterns easily produced from a beautiful flower source image.
One of the best Photoshop resources, Photoshop Tips & Tricks (a part of the online DT&G Magazine), welcomes the arrival of SymmetryShop. "Time was that if you wanted to generate spectacular patterns for web or print use, you needed to go through the tedious process in Adobe Illustrator, then import into Photoshop. Artlandia now brings all that horse-power to your fingertips for generating quick, easy professional patterns in Photoshop!"
Artlandia SymmetryWorks, is named 3rd in the Top 10 plug-ins for Illustrator and FreeHand by The Complete Digital Art Creative Handbook published by the makers of Computer Art magazine in the UK. According to the citation, "SymmetryWorks is a powerful plug-in that enables you to create amazing patterns from the simplest of artwork. Even more amazing is the fact that it is fully interactive, so the base elements can be edited on the fly, resulting in instant updates to the pattern."
Artlandia SymmetryWorks 3's "Powerful pattern creation with virtually limitless possibilities" gets the top rating, 5 cubes, from IT-Enquirer.
According to the review, SymmetryWorks 3 brings professional pattern design for textile designers as well as graphic and web designers to a new level.
In the July 2004 ATPM review, Ted Goranson gives kudos to Artlandia SymmetryWorks. "SymmetryWorks can handle raster objects, type, 3D effects, gradients, transparency, filters, and masks. And you can 'blend' tiles as well. This makes it both much easier for a beginner and more unlimited for an expert.... SymmetryWorks is the tool to have if you take this stuff seriously." The review also recognizes the SymmetryWorks user guide as "among the best (and most attractive) user manuals I have seen." Ted awards the highest ATPM rating to the plug-in. "SymmetryWorks is just plain awesome in what it can do, and how it leverages Illustrator. I rate it Excellent."
Look for another SymmetryWorks tutorial in Computer Arts Projects, Issue 59, June 2004, p. 97. "SymmetryWorks 3.11 supports Illustrator CS' 3D Effects so you can create exciting 3D patterns quickly." The "fantastic collection of optical patterns" from the Artlandia Collection is also highlighted in the magazine.
"SymmetryWorks Version 3.0 is one of those rare programs with a very high "wow" factor.... It is unequalled in its category," notes the review in the Kleper Report on Digital Publishing (Issue 9.2, March/April 2004). The Artlandia Collection's Certificate Kit earned high marks, too. "Having admired the designs on stock certificates and other forms of commercial paper, it was incredibly satisfying and empowering to be able to create similar effects." See the complete review here.
Discussing professional-grade plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator, the PC Pro magazine highlights Artlandia SymmetryWorks as a specialized tool for "users for whom pattern making is a central part of their work... The beauty of this system is that patterns remain live so you can keep adding X or Y tiles to fill the space required. More importantly, you're able to edit the original 'seed' pattern, for example, by resizing, repositioning, recolouring or adding a new element, and the overall pattern gets updated. You may also add editable cloned 'replicas' of your seed and save these, together with the transformations that you apply to them, as 'layouts'. Working in this way, it's possible to... produce virtually any kind of repeating pattern."
Artlandia SymmetryWorks saves time and increases productivity in the CAD studio. "A single click of the mouse can turn a simple pen stroke or a more complex motif into an unlimited array of patterns in seconds," says Elaine Polvinen in the January 2004 issue of AATCC Review, International Magazine for Textile Design, Processing, and Testing (vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 12-14). "This integrated development method translates into a cost effective, quick response pre-production design development strategy."
The special issue on illustration of the Computer Arts magazine (No. s38, 2002, pp. 34-36) has a detailed Artlandia SymmetryWorks tutorial by Chris Schmidt: "Creating effective tile designs within Illustrator can take hours of careful planning as seamless joins are perfected without affecting reliant areas of the pattern. Creating complex interweaving patterns to retain their seamless joins can be impossible without a little help from a plug-in such as SymmetryWorks from Artlandia."
Communication Arts in its Photography Annual 2002 issue notes that "Artlandia SymmetryWorks enables graphic designers, illustrators, textile and industrial designers to create an unlimited variety of patterns and surface designs quickly and easily."
Textile World (October 2001) brings the SymmetryWorks' "integrated live patterns" into the spotlight.
"Patterns made easy," says G. H. Cloutier, whose review "Create beautiful patterns using SymmetryWorks" appears in the November 2001 issue of Inside Illustrator. "SymmetryWorks gives you the fun of creating patterns in Illustrator and takes care of all the tedium for you... When you can make patterns so easily, you'll probably find yourself using them more often," she concludes.
Artlandia SymmetryWorks is announced in the July 2001 issue of Electronic Publishing: "SymmetryWorks automates the production of symmetry-based surface designs not only for illustrations, but also for fabrics, wallcoverings, web pages, tiling, quilting, and more."
MacInTouch played with SymmetryWorks recently (6/13/2001) and was "very impressed with the product's depth and control."
The Mac Design Magazine in its May/June 2001 issue points out that SymmetryWorks greatly simplifies the process of making patterns: "Until now making seamless patterns in Adobe Illustrator (or any program for that matter) has been a pain staking task. Countless hours are spent in tweaking your pattern pixel by pixel to make everything line up. This has changed with SymmetryWorks by Artlandia."
SymmetryWorks' ability to "create and interactively edit symmetrical patterns and designs" is featured in the Vol. 6, No. 22 issue of the Math Forum Internet News, a popular gateway to Math and Math Education on the Internet.
May 1, 2001—SymmetryWorks receives Editor's Choice award from The Internet EYE Magazine. The reviewer Vikki Dawson has found SymmetryWorks "awesome," "absolutely design inspiring," and "a must have plugin." She likes the simplicity of pattern creation: "SymmetryWorks will save you tons of hours of work by creating fantastic patterns and designs in just seconds or minutes... It is well worth the asking price and more." As an added bonus, Vikki discovered that "the patterns created in SymmetryWorks... are just a copy from Illustrator and paste into your [Macromedia] Flash movies... SymmetryWorks is amazing." Read the full review.
See how computers, with the help of Artlandia, can create "graphic designs that look handmade—or nature made" in issue 20 of Science Spectra, the popular "International Magazine of Contemporary Scientific Thought" (2000), pp. 24-31.
The ability of Artlandia to produce attractive color schemes with a single simple command impressed the reviewer of Graphica books Harold P. Boas (The American Mathematical Monthly, V. 107, No. 3 (March 2000), pp. 286-291). Dr. Boas notes that "a tool for creative graphic design... called Artlandia helps in producing designs that go beyond pure technical brilliance into the realm of creative artistry".
Von Patrick Roth from the largest Swiss weekly newspaper Die Weltwoche (February 3, 2000) notices that Artlandia sets up "... an environment for even a layman to play with the algorithms and facilitates serendipity while dramatically shortening the time needed to create a finished design, from days and weeks to hours."
"Artlandia... provides a vast palette of mechanisms for creating and manipulating graphical information in an algorithmically aesthetic fashion." — Flip Phillips, Editor. See the Editor's Pick in issue 3 of The Mathematica Journal (1999).
Artlandia's "applied art" from Graphica 2 featured in the review by Philip J. Davis, "From Computer Graphics toward Computer Art", in the July-August 1999 issue of the SIAM News.
Controlling "... artistic efforts with algorithmic precision" — see Ivars Peterson's new Artlandia-generated necktie designs in the MathTrek article on Plane Patterns.
The Graphica books reviewed in the Communication Arts magazine, 1999, No. 1, p. 156, 161. In the part related to Artlandia-generated Graphica 2, Sam McMillan mentions that "... Dozens of richly colored illustrations that evoke natural patterns ... approach a level of art in their ability to surprise, shock and even delight."
Artlandia design "The Violet Kiss" is featured in the January/February (1999) issue of Computer Graphics and Applications. John Charles notes that "Artlandia's automatic pattern generation feature assists throughout the design process."
Artlandia announced in the December 1998 issue of Scientific Computing & Automation under the heading "Beauty Described in Mathematica Language."
Mike Bedford devotes his article on computer art in the December 1998 issue of Computer Shopper, UK to the Graphica book series and features the Artlandia graphics. He notes that "... Mathematica is a sophisticated general purpose maths package, not specifically a tool for creating mathematical art. However, by making use of ... Artlandia, the package is more tailored for creative graphics design."
A ten-page article by Igor Bakshee in the Fall 1998 issue of Mathematica in Education and Research explores the design process with Artlandia. The Artlandia'99 greeting card giftwraps the journal.
Artlandia is in the focus of the article "Fashion by Numbers" in the November 1998 issue of Computer Graphics World. "Artlandia... converts complex computations into attractive patterns and designs...," says Karen Moltenbrey, an associate editor of the magazine.
The spread highlighting the Graphica book series in the November/December 1998 issue of the Applied Arts Magazine features an Artlandia graphic among the "startling images that are at once amazingly complex and beautifully simple." "Who says art and science don't mix?" asks the journal.
Computer magazine announces Artlandia in its October 1998 issue: "Artlandia's new software works with Mathematica to generate fractal designs with artificial intelligence algorithms."
MacWeek (07.27.98) announces Artlandia: "Artlandia fashions designs from formulas" by Christina Follmann.
" ... you are rewarded with one stunning image after another." — See Visiting Artlandia in Ivars Peterson's MathTrek, Science News Online.
June 18, 1998 — The availability of Artlandia announced at the Worldwide Mathematica Conference in Chicago. It's easy to be creative in Artlandia!
Highlighted in Graphica 2, Artlandia's ability to balance "strict geometry against carefully controlled randomness to produce unique computer-generated designs" caught the eye of the Midwest Book Review — see The Artbook Shelf in the September 1999 issue. Artlandia featured in the Computer Graphics section of Buyers' Guide to CAD, CAD/CAM, CAE and GIS in Southern Africa (1998): "[Artlandia generates] stunning ornaments, patterns, designs and art that don't look as though they have been made on a computer...." Scientific Data Management: "... stunning design" - Vol. 2, No. 1, 1998.
