Help redsigning a tartan

[Steve Ashton]

Your comments are interesting and appreciated Richard although the USMC Dress Blue Tartan cannot be changed at this date. It is already registered, fabric woven, and kilts made from this design.

The reason behind these two designs is based not only on how these look as a square on the screen but how they look when made into kilts with various pleating choices.

The USMC, when pleated to the Red stripe is very reminiscent of the full uniform. The lighter blue really looks like the trousers.
And the white accent look like the waistbelt and cover.



Some people do not like blocks of color like my designs but others, myself included. do. I sized the elements in the same ratio as that found in the uniform itself so it sort of had to have the two blues in that ratio.
I of course look at Tartan as a Kiltmaker would. I imagine it laid out on a table, as I try to figure out how to pleat it. I look at Sett size and the width of the individual elements. In general fewer, larger, simplier elements pleat up much better than a lot of small elements.
As I tend to pleat military inspired Tartans to the Stripe I would usually pleat this Army Tartan to the Gold stripe within the lighter blue.

This would mean that the white and branch distinctive parts would be seen in the front apron and far less in the back of the kilt.

I ran some numbers and if I were commissioned to have this woven I would request five different runs.
The first four would have the branch colors of the four largest branches.
Infantry Blue for Infantry
Yellow for Armor and Cav
Scarlet for Artillery and ADA
And Ultamarine Blue for Aviation.

I would then have the fifth run of 4 times more yardage done with a fifth, more neutral branch stripe such as MSC.
When someone were to order fabric for a kilt they would get 3 yards d/w for the pleats and 1yard d/w for the aprons in their choice of branch.

This would actually be a very cost effective way to have this Tartan woven.

Four runs of 14yards and one of 64 yards. Very easily done.

My submission is quite different from some of the others submitted so far. I am using the current ASU Army uniform and not the Dress Blue or Green Class A used during my time. So I do not have any green in my designs.
the two colors used in the current ASU uniform are actually quite close to each other. Army shade 450 for the blouse and Army shade 452 for the trousers. I included the gold stripe within the lighter blue to represent the gold stripe of the NCO and Officer trousers.
The White in my design is for the shirt. To my eye this design was quite dark and needed an accent stripe to catch the eye.
In my design there actually are black guards to the branch stripe and between the White and Lighter Blue.

So yes, my submissions are quite different from some of the others. I think that was the goal of the OP. to see if something different could be done that would represent what he sees and thinks of when he sees US Army attached to a design.

So I offer these only as submissions. The decision will be in the eye of the OP. If he likes mine he is welcome to them free of charge. If not he is free to choose any other design he prefers better.

[Benning Boy]

Man, you guys are really cranking out some great ideas. I probably should stop messing around and follow your leads.

Guiness, I love your design. I see you chose privet as the olive shade. I'd been playing with that one too. You're choice for khaki is excellent. That Infantry blue sure tickles my fancy.


I'm really liking the various proposed tartans based on the dress uniform, too. Could there be an Army Modern Dress tartan that's predominately blue, and an Army hunting tartan based on the olive? Hunting really isn't an official Army mission, but patrolling is. Maybe we could have an Army Dress and an Army Patrolling tartan. How about that that?

Steve's designs are fantastic. Very dressy. I really appreciate knowing how the tartan would pleat. As I've toyed with designs I've wondered how they might pleat. A kilt making master should know far better than I. I like the way branch colors can be worked in. The Scotweb tartan designer tells me thread count, but I have no idea how that converts to inches and pleatability.


OCRichard, your designs are impressive. I do like the touch of black running through the dark blue. I have no idea how much of a new Army tartan would ever sell, but I think giving the buyer an option of having branch colors woven in is a big plus. You displayed the option very well.

Having just read Steve's last post, I understand his designs even better. I'm not sure I understand the idea behind the amounts that might be ordered, conceivably, I'm going to have to reread that and try to imagine how a kilt is made. I appreciate you making you designs freely available, Steve.

I'm getting the itch. The tartan designs keep saying to me buy, buy, buy! However, a new kilt is going to have to wait. I want to lose a few more inches before committing to anything of higher quality and cost. However, that wouldn't necessarily stop me from buying fabric in anticipation of reaching a goal that should be arrived at by late summer, at the present rate.

This thread has had a lot of viewers. Won't some of you comment? I'm excited by this effort, but would appreciate even more commentary.

[Benning Boy]

In post #21 above, Steve describes how he might have a large order of Army tartan woven. He says he would have a fifth run of 64 yards incorporating some more neutral branch color such as MSC, Medical Service Corp, sort of a maroon shade. Is there some color even less branch specific that might serve? Right now I'm thinking buff. Buff lapel facings were incorporated into the original Continental Army uniform, and buff sashes and other accouterments were worn by general officers throughout the 19th century, and I believe into the 20th for a while as I recall. General officers are called general officers because they have such general knowledge of officering BS that they have risen above being branch specific officers. So, it seems to me buff might be a good color to use. But, what do you think? You soldiers out there, young and old, I'd like you input.

[The Wizard of BC]

To give you an idea of what this may look like pleated up -

[OC Richard]

One thing to perhaps keep in mind when designing a tartan is the proportions.

Most of the rectilinear things we see (television screens, monitors, windows, painting, photographs, cell phones, postage stamps, posters, books, mirrors, many walls, many tables, etc etc) are made, more or less according to the sense of proportion analyzed and consciously used by the ancient Greeks and by Western culture ever since. It is called The Golden Proportion, Golden Mean, or Golden Ratio. (It is related to The Rule Of Thirds in my opinion.)

Many traditional tartans follow this near-universal aesthetic too, for designs that violate it tend to strike us (usually unconsciously, unless one has had art or design training) as unsettled, ungainly, cumbersome, inelegant, or simply 'not right'. Were one to create an entire home (completely furnished) based on a proportion different from the Golden one people walking through it would find it inexplicably unsettling.

Things which are 50/50 aren't as ungainly as ones more subtly divergent for some reason. Here's a simplified version of Wizard's tartan attempting to get as 50/50 as possible (I was unable to get it to look absolutely even no matter how I arranged the thread count)



Here are the same elements rearranged in more classic proportions, as weavers have been using for hundreds of years



and flipped the other way



Neither perhaps is as strong as the 50/50 one, the upper one in this post.

What strikes the eye, at least the trained one, as unsettled or conflicted is if the proportions are neither 50/50 nor follow traditional classic proportions. When I look at this it seems like the various elements are fighting for dominance rather than working together



Another thing (while I'm up here on my soapbox) is to try to get past our post-Allen Brothers tendency to create simplistic diagrammatic tartans, and try to get back to the ethos of many early tartans which were often quite complex, sometimes to the point of looking dissipated. Here's an attempt at throwing aside the Sobieski curse and make something with more meat in it



Here is perhaps my favourite, striking a balance between complexity and simplicity

[Benning Boy]

Richard, I like what you've done with Wizard's concept. He's done a really good job of matching the current Army blue shades, and I like it, but at the same time it is dark, there is something foreboding about it. You've put together a "happier" version.

I appreciate you thoughts about composition. I'm really good a three dimensional stuff -- sculpting and carving -- but I've never been artsy when it comes to putting colors together and working two dimensionally.


Are your variations available on to be viewed on Scotweb? I'd like to play with the colors. The light blue woolen fabric made by Woolrich for Civil War re-enactors uniform is, using the RGB scheme, R135 G168 B183 This is a lighter blue than now used for trousers, but is more nearly the color used by the Army for a very long time prior to adoption of the current uniform.


Woolrich's dark blue, they call it navy, for Civil War coats and jackets is R47 G45 B66. This same dark blue would have been more-or-less the standard color for Army shirts through about 1899-1900. Both shades would have carried on in the dress uniforms well into modern times.

A dark blue I like, named indigo, is 35 35 85


Infantry blue is 96 124 140, Pantone 5415.


I've spent a lot of time looking at blues at http://www.colourlovers.com/ Man, there's a gillion of 'em.

I like a bright white, like plain ol' 255 255 255. The Peroxide White on Scotsweb is pretty good.

I've just been trying to discover the correct colors, and haven't been back to Scotweb in a couple of days. The last time there I tried working with Pro Colors, using the RGB codes, but I didn't know what numbers worked the best. Now I have a better idea, and will have to go back and try again. I also need to see what comes close in weavers colors, just for the money saving aspect of it.


Arty Red is 196 30 58. The same red is assigned to Engineers, only with white piping.

Armor/Cavalry yellow is 255 198 30


MP green is 33 91 51, with yellow piping in the same shade as Armor.


In an earlier post I mentioned buff. It's actually the Quartermaster Corp branch color it's 193 168 117. Buff was once associated with general officers, and I was thinking of it as a common color for the entire Army, but nowadays it isn't. May have to give more thought to a common color. Could use West Point gray, but I never did care for those ring knockers.

[Benning Boy]

Here are some designs, using Scotweb, that started as a variation on Wizard's design, then simplified.


First, I tried to duplicate Wizards thread count using Pro colors. Each color was selected using RGB codes mentioned above, plus official US Army dress uniform gold RGB 133 113 77. This is supposed to be a metallic gold. However, as you can see it reproduces as more of a brownish shade.



The narrow black stripe gets lost on the dark blue, so I eliminated it and got this.



Finally, I did a variation on the above version, but using Weavers colors, choosing those that seemed closest to the Pro colors, and got this.



The colors are Pewter Blue as Infantry Blue, Gold, Illinois Navy as the dark blue, Peroxide White, and Anderson Blue as the light blue, or sky blue.

I like the Pro colors better than the Weavers colors, but using Weavers colors would be less expensive. I'm going to continue to doodle as I have time. Richard, can you provide me with thread counts for you versions? What are your thoughts?

[The Wizard of BC]

Interestingly Richard after your comments I went back and looked at my thread counts. I laid out the ratio between the two blues by eye at first, but when I went back I found that it is almost exactly the Golden Mean ratio. As close as you can get using a minimum of two yarns of any color.

The two blue Colors are also the same as those used in the current ASU uniform. I didn't use RGB colors, I used The Pantone numbers of Army 450 and 451. They may look dark but so does the uniform.