∞ forever components

Playful Geometric Notation

Glyph Garden

Childlike pictographs — fish, moon, arrow, face, tree, star, boat — drawn stroke-by-stroke on warm paper, held, then erased and reseeded in a cycling grid.

canvasmedium complexitymoderate motion

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When to use it

Ambient backgrounds with an artsy or illustrative tone. Gallery headers, creative portfolio pages, or Bauhaus-inspired UI themes.

When not to

Contexts needing static or text-heavy layouts — glyphs cycle continuously and compete for attention.

Working with an AI agent

Every component ships agent-ready metadata. An example instruction for this one:

Add a new glyph called 'cross' to the GLYPHS object with strokes [[-1,0],[1,0]] and [[0,-1],[0,1]], then include 'cross' in the NAMES array. Theme: dark tokens live in :root, the light variant in :root[data-theme="light"]; ?theme=light or a {type:'forever:theme'} postMessage switches at runtime.

Safe to edit

  • glyph shapes (GLYPHS object)
  • accent palette (HUES array)
  • ink color (INK constant)
  • draw/erase speed (dt*0.9 and dt*1.4)
  • grid cell size (120 divisor in seed())
  • hold duration (1.4 + random*1.2)
  • theme tokens (:root dark defaults + [data-theme=light] overrides)

Keep intact

  • DPR-aware canvas sizing in fitCanvas()
  • visibilitychange pause/resume guards
  • prefers-reduced-motion static draw path
  • IIFE wrapper
  • theme hook (?theme= bootstrap + forever:theme message listener + theme tokens)

Known limitations

  • Glyph coordinates are hand-authored unit-space paths — adding new shapes requires careful coordinate design
  • Grid recalculates on resize with 150ms debounce; rapid resizing may briefly show stale layout
  • No touch/pointer interactivity — fully passive

canvasdrawingglyphstroke-by-strokeloopgenerativepictograph

More Playful Geometric Notation components

  • Magic Square7x5 grid of color blocks in terracotta, teal, mustard, slate, and plum that slowly breathe — scaling and shifting saturation — evoking a Bauhaus…
  • A Line Goes WalkingA single ink line wanders the warm paper canvas step by step, tracing a random path from a teal start-dot to a terracotta head; fades and resets on a loop.
  • Arrow FieldA grid of colored arrows rotates and pulses in a slow flow-field current, each pointing direction driven by sine waves and radial angle from center.
  • Polyphony GridA 16x6 color grid swept by a column playhead; active cells flash with scale and glow on each pass, voices re-seeded each lap for evolving compositions.
  • Twittering ContraptionFour Bauhaus-style wire birds bob on a horizontal wire and chirp musical notes while a hand-crank below spins. Inspired by Bauhaus's 1922 painting.
  • Colour Staircase9 color-graduated bars ascend like a staircase, each breathing in height and marching hue in staggered CSS keyframe loops. Warm parchment background.