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About Form

"This hole is a line some time next week."

A generative tool based on a publication by Patrick Walker.

Summary

Form turns the one rule of a publication, 11 ways I can make you up, into a tool. A block on a grid moves and the place it left stays marked. Draw a shape, or take one at random, and Form finds every way that rule can make it up. The results come as a contact sheet, an animation and SVG artwork, and can be bound as an A5 book, imposed and ready to print. It also runs the rule the other way, finding every way to unmake the shape, one block at a time. Both come with every shape, in one sequence. It works in a web browser on a phone or a laptop, with no account and nothing uploaded.

Description

The book starts with one letter, a T built from square blocks, and asks how many ways a single form can be remade by moving its parts. Form starts from any shape: a square, an arch, a half square triangle or a circle, placed and turned on a grid, or a starter symbol picked at random.

The rule is the book's one rule. A block moves to a new place and the place it left stays marked. Everything in the book comes from that one move, shown in different ways. Form has all five:

iForm: the T and the variations made by moving one block.

iiDirection: each block is drawn as stripes that run along the line it is joined on.

iiiCumulative Solid: the blocks that moved leave a solid trace behind.

ivCumulative Transparency: the earlier variants stay behind as fading ghosts, so tone builds up wherever the same place was filled more than once.

vCumulative Density: every block is drawn in fine lines and each iteration adds a layer at its own angle, so where layers overlap the lines cross into a darker mesh.

Form also runs the rule the other way. The title says make you up; Unmake says unmake you. It takes blocks away one at a time, or moves them apart until none touch, so the shape comes apart.

Two ideas sit behind it. The first is the Stations of the Cross: one figure, a fixed sequence of stops, each one a pause, and the T standing in for a cross. The second is Paul Klee's way of describing drawing as taking a line for a walk (Pedagogical Sketchbook, 1925). Here a block takes the walk, and its trace is the line left behind.

What this deals with

Symbols can be made and undone. Love and hate.

Using it

Pick a shape, click the grid to place blocks (click a placed block again to turn it, and once more to remove it), then press Process. You get every variation on a contact sheet and as an animation. Both download as SVG, ready to use as artwork. Any treatment can also be seen isometrically, and you can choose the paper and ink colours. The contact sheet downloads as a portrait page, A3 to A0, and the animation as a looping GIF or a video for social media. The Camera button turns what the camera sees into blocks on the grid, a face for example, and Take freezes it so it can be made up or unmade like any other shape. The Publication buttons turn the result into an A5 book in the design of the original, as a PDF: imposed for printing, two pages to an A4 landscape sheet in booklet order with no bleed, or as plain pages.

How it's made

Form was made in October 2026. It is plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with no server, no login and nothing to install. Every shape is drawn in SVG, so the artwork is vector and prints at any size.

Making it was a collaboration. Patrick Walker brought the publication and the decisions about what the tool should do and how it should look; an AI coding assistant did the building, working from his direction. The AI is in the making, not the running: every shape and view is a drawing technique in code, not a generative model.

Energy & sustainability

Form runs on the device already in front of the person using it, a phone or a laptop. It works in the browser with no server, no render pass and no exported video, and what it draws is light vector shapes. Nothing is uploaded.

AI was used to build the tool, not to run it. Its energy was spent once, in development, and not again each time Form is used. The energy of building Form has not been measured separately.

Details

Privacy

Form has no accounts, no sign-in, no cookies, no tracking and no ads. It stores nothing in your browser and counts no visits. It runs in your web browser and has no server of its own. The shapes you draw stay on your device, and the SVG files are made in the browser and saved straight to it.

Camera. If you turn the camera on, your browser asks first. The picture is turned into blocks live on your device and is not recorded, saved or sent anywhere. It stops when you press Take or Stop, or leave the page.

Hosting. The site is served by GitHub Pages. Like any web host, GitHub may record basic technical details of visits, such as IP address and browser; see GitHub's privacy statement. The code and fonts come from this site.

Questions about privacy: get in touch via pkwr.co.

Rights

© 2026 Patrick Walker, all rights reserved. The code is published so the tool can run in a browser; that is not permission to copy or reuse it. Please ask first. The publication 11 ways I can make you up is also © Patrick Walker.

What you make. The shapes, sheets, animations, GIFs and books you make with Form can be shared and printed for non-commercial use, with the credit "Made with Form, form.pkwr.co". Please ask first before using them commercially. The credit and these terms are written into the files Form makes.

Third-party

Elsewhere

Made with the same look as Spot. © 2026 pkwr · Changelog