Fundamental Study on Design System of Kolam Pattern

Kiwamu Yanagisawa¹* and Shojiro Nagata²

¹Kobe Design University, 8-1-1 Gakuennishi-machi, Nishi-ku, Kobe 651-2196, Japan
²InterVision Institute, 5-4-24 Katase, Fujisawa, Kanagawa 251-0032, Japan
*E-mail address: kiwamet@kaguraoka.info

(Received November 3, 2006; Accepted September 4, 2007)

Keywords: Knot Pattern, One-Stroke Pattern, Numeric Conversion, Linear Diagram, India

Abstract. "Kolam" is a kind of string/knot pattern seen primarily in Tamilnadu state of South India, which has a very attractive system of pattern formation, that is to say, countless complicated Kolam patterns can be drawn following extremely simple elements and drawing rules. In this paper, the fundamental characteristic of Kolam patterns' designing system is considered by converting these patterns into numbers and linear diagrams. Further discussions on the drawing methods to create new Kolams will also be given.