Texture Notes

VISUAL TEXTURE Visual texture refers to the illusion of the surface's texture. It is what tactile texture looks like (on a 2D surface). The textures you see in a photograph are visual textures. No matter how rough objects in the photograph look, the surface of the photograph is smooth and flat. Both types are important to the designer, but in 2D art, the illusion of texture is used more than tactile texture.
When photographs are used for collage materials, texture starts to take on more importance. Now you can use the illusion of many different textures, as well as the colors and objects in the pictures. This is one of the things that make collage such a potentially powerful technique. What you lack in control and versatility is more than made up by the rich variety of colors, textures and images that are at the your disposal. Collage allows someone with modest technical skills, and no drawing skills, to create a sophisticated image. Texture is one of the more subtle design elements. It can make an image richer and more interesting, but is not likely to save a poor composition all by itself.
Most textures have a naturalistic quality; they repeat a motif in a random way. A motif is any recurring thematic element or repeated figure in design. It could be an object, shape, color, direction, etc. With a texture you may be aware of the repeating motif but you are more aware of the surface.
PATTERN A recognizable motif regularly repeated produces a pattern. Pattern requires repetition -- in design as in life (a pattern of behavior). The more regular the repetition, the stronger the pattern. Compare this field of flowers with a checkerboard. Both have a repeating motif. The most noticeable patterns occur when you see the group before the individuals -- notice the organization first (the checker board). All of the motifs in a pattern have surfaces, so there is always texture. But there is not always pattern -- only when you notice it. Texture and pattern are related. When you look closely at a tree you can see the pattern of leaves that make its surface. When you back away you loose awareness of the leaves and notice the texture the leaves make on the tree. Farther away still and you can see the pattern of the trees making up the forest and finally the texture of the forest. In this way pattern changes to texture as you loose sight of the individual motifs. This is easy to do with natural patterns, but you have to get quite far away from a checker board grid to see it as texture. Patterns are generally more noticeable than textures. This makes them a stronger visual element for controlling attention.