So I made my own isometric grid paper [PDF].

The lines are grey at 75% brightness. I’ve found that this keeps the focus on whatever you’re putting on top of them while at the same time keeping the lines legible during work. Of course, there’s no watermarks or any other silly stuff that graph-paper providers like to add either.

If you print the PDF at the default size, the diamonds that form the grid are about a 1/2 inch wide, and a little bit less than 1/3 inch tall. The full size of the grid is 10×7.5 inches, perfect for printing on letter sized paper with 1/2 inch margins. If you need a larger grid than that, my paper can pixel-perfectly tile in all directions.

Enjoy! Tell your friends!

The Freedom Tower struts its slinky glass and Epcot Center’s Spaceship Earth looks pretty flash covered in the oh-so-futuristic Alucobond tiles. Of course, we can’t forget Frank Gehry’s solar death rays: the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall are very striking, clad in their reflective titanium and stainless steel (and they do reflect the sun quite a bit).

I love the chance to see these structures, but I don’t know if I’d want to touch them. When was the last time you cuddled with a mirror or a plate of titanium? Designers know that people love touching. The people at Maserati cover the insides of their cars with the softest leather they can find. OXO made a business out of covering kitchen gadgets in fun grippy rubber.

Have you ever seen someone poke, stroke, pinch and flick their iPhone? I have.

Have you ever seen someone hug a building?

How can an architect make that happen? Well, it would help if the buildings asked to be touched. Glass and metal get all smudgy and ugly when people touch them (as anyone with a stainless steel fridge and a toddler will tell you). They do look very slick, but the perfectly smooth surfaces don’t offer much in the way of tactile interest. A window will feel the same no matter where you touch it.

Brick and stone are slightly friendlier. They may be rough and scary at times, but at least they offer some texture. The random pits and crannies in the baked mud are certainly appealing stuck together with the orderly of pattern of the bricks themselves. If you run a stick against the wall, it goes pop pop with the beat of the mortar. An old stone wall becomes an ecosystem in itself, collecting all sorts of weird mosses and slimes.

But what other materials would make an appealing tactile facade? Maybe you could cover a wall in black rubbery ridges, the way OXO does with potato peelers. Take that stuff made out of old tires that they cover playgrounds with and hang it up, then run right at it and bounce right off. Put a hose on top of your house and make it a big cubic waterfall. You could create a gigantic bizzaro-land padded cell by covering a warehouse with couch cushions.

Heck, why not take that glass you love so much and cover it with little bumply bits, like a bottle of Bawls Guarana. Or turn that smooth stainless steel into a cheese grater. That would be cool.