Moresque Ornament
A collection of Moorish vector borders, background tiles and page decorative elements hand-drawn in eps format in Adobe Illustrator.
Based on the images of the plates 39, 41a, 41b, 42a, 42b, 42c, 43 of the Chapter 10 of the Grammar of Ornament. This volume is dedicated to the Moresque Ornament from the Alhambra, a comprehensive collection of graphics based on sculptured and painted patterns as well as repeating floor patterns.

Owen Jones introduces this chapter: “Our Illustrations of the ornament of the Moors have been taken exclusively from the Alhambra, not only because it is one of their works with which we are best acquainted, but also because it is the one in which their marvelous system of decoration reached its culminating point. The Alhambra is at the very summit of perfection of Moorish art, as is the Parthenon of Greek art. We can find no work so fitted to illustrate a Grammar of Ornament as that in which every ornament contains a grammar in itself. Every principle which we can derive from the study of the ornamental art of any other people is not only ever present here, but was by the Moors more universally and truly obeyed.”

Our vector graphics have been hand-drawn with the correct geometric construction and are perfectly tileable as tiles, linear borders and page borders, dividers and decorative elements. For all the patterns of which the design permitted, we have created the corners tiles.

The Grammar of Ornament
Owen Jones first published this monument of design reference in 1856, in installments for subscribers. Since then have been many editions in many languages including modern reprints.
This beautiful and highly influential publication, illustrated with examples of historical styles of ornament is a classic in its field and still regarded with respect and consulted today. The choice of color used in the book was considered as important and influential as the designs.
The drawing in the plates are based on the massive collection of design patterns gathered by Owen Jones in his travels around the world and from collections residing in British Museums including the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum).

The making of the vector graphics for the Grammar of Ornament
At first view the making of the graphics from The Grammar of Ornament may be considered quite a simple task, lengthy and tedious, but simple. A more accurate look at the original graphics from the book shows that they are merely freehand drawings without any accurate geometrical construction and often tricks of the brush were used to make the ends meet and the pattern look correct while it was not. To create the tiles and the corners of each drawing and each repeating pattern we had first to build the geometry and sometime we had to modify the proportions of the patterns to make them real and possible. Corners were inexistent and have been created for almost all the repeating linear patterns; the design of some linear pattern did not permit the creation of the corner. The EPS version of the graphics preserves in each file our original grouping of the elements, which facilitate the change of colors and/or the extraction of individual elements. All colors have been created as process colors and defined as global.

Vector eps royalty free stock images
Each decorative image and element is meticulously hand-drawn in vector graphic format eps. Many advanced designers will find our eps vector format royalty free stock images with the following desirable feature: preserved, original hierarchies and groupings, (as in the original Illustrator work file) to facilitate modifications and enable the extraction of unique graphic elements. Though resolution-independent vector graphics formats insure high-quality reproduction at any size and allow complete latitude for pre-production modifications, our collections also include the WMF vector format supported by Office applications for desktop publication.