This illustration is part of a series commissioned by AIGA Eye on Design, the leading platform on visual design in the United States, adorning a series of essays by design educator Aggie Toppins on graphic design history.

Toppins’ narration focuses on non-linearity, circularity, movement in the crafting of design historiography. To mirror her central point that living beings experience both linear and circular time at once, the illustration uses the metaphor of a sensual weaving of fractals. Fractals grow as vectors while creating a pattern at the same time, thus existing as both linear and circular.

The illustration is meant as a strong visual statement, a sensual deployment of the wonders that can be found within the complex tapestry of existence—once we look closely.