# Pen-Plotter Aesthetics & SVG Export

**Track:** Craft & Production — Advanced Creative Coding — proposed (50)
**Framework / surface:** p5.js
**Level:** Hard
**Prerequisites:** Advanced Flow Fields

**In one line:** Vector-first: hatching, single-line fills, layer separation.

## Theory, aesthetics & inspiration

Vector-first thinking treats the drawing as paths, not pixels: a pen-plotter renders only lines, so tone must come from hatching, cross-hatching, and single-stroke fills, and color from physical layer separation and pen changes. The medium is also the origin of computer art—Georg Nees and Frieder Nake exhibited plotter drawings in 1965, and Manfred Mohr and Vera Molnár made the plotter a lifelong instrument. The contemporary scene, built around the AxiDraw, prizes the honest wobble of real ink on paper over flawless raster. Exporting clean SVG—deduplicated, layer-ordered, path-optimized—is the craft. Resolution-independence and physical mark-making are the whole point.