Hero Patterns

87 free CC BY repeatable SVG patterns, copied out as a CSS data-URI background

Tier A · StrongAsset PackGeneratorheropatterns.com

Hero Patterns is Steve Schoger's collection of 87 hand-drawn, tileable SVG background patterns — Topography, Circuit Board, Jigsaw, Hexagons, Endless Clouds, Bank Note and so on. Pick a pattern, set the foreground colour, opacity and background colour, then copy the generated CSS (a background-image data URI) or download the unstyled SVG. It is free under CC BY 4.0 and has been the default source of subtle web background texture since 2016.

For an agent

This is the fastest path to a textured section background: the site hands you a finished `background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml,...")` string, so paste it into a Tailwind arbitrary value or a CSS custom property and you are done — no asset pipeline, no extra request. Keep opacity around 0.05-0.1 and set the fill to a token colour so the pattern survives a dark-mode swap, since the data URI bakes the colour in and will not respond to CSS variables. Reach for Nucleo SVG Patterns instead when you need a plain grid or dot grid; Hero Patterns' catalogue is illustrative and reads as decorative, and its 2016-era motifs (Skulls, Charlie Brown, Piano Man) will date a page fast.

Why it is here. The canonical free SVG pattern set — CC BY, still online after a decade, and the only one whose output is already a paste-ready CSS declaration, which is exactly the shape an agent wants.

Install command, framework, licence and component list.

Facts

License: CC BY
Pricing: Free
Framework: Not applicable
Styling: Vanilla CSS, Tailwind CSS
Distribution: Web app / online tool, Copy-paste snippet, Direct download / asset pack, GitHub repository
Platform: Web
Content type: Images / textures / backgrounds, Code
Agent readiness: Copy-paste ready code, Readable open source
Accessibility: Not applicable
Maturity: Stable
GitHub stars: 59

Helps you build

Homepage

Notable for

87 named tileable patterns
CC BY 4.0, free forever
copy-ready CSS data URI output
by Steve Schoger (Refactoring UI)
source repo dormant since 2021

Provenance

Verified 2026-08-15. HTTP 200. https://heropatterns.com (WebFetch), https://heropatterns.com/js/app.js (curl, 87 pattern names extracted), https://github.com/sschoger/hero-patterns (WebFetch), https://api.github.com/repos/sschoger/hero-patterns (stars 59, pushed_at 2021-11-12, no license, not archived)

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