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A flexible design system mimicking spiraling floral patterns found on Bouzouki by approximating the physics of plant growth.

Rebetiko is the music of the poor, urban neighborhoods of Greece from the early 1900s, eventually transforming into being the characteristic Greek music for three quarters of the 20^th Century. It is the music of the marginalized, the subcultures, the refugees, singing for poverty the hardships of life, love, and dance.

During the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922, a huge number of Greek refugees from Anatolia poured into Greece and settled close to industrial port cities like Piraeus, bringing with them Near Eastern influences. From being the music of the vagabonds, Rebetiko slowly gained popularity and acceptance, and by the late 1930s, Vassilis Tsitsanis put Rebetiko to every home.

A quintessential part of Rebetiko is the instruments used, with the Bouzouki being the most distinctive one and others prominent ones being the Baglamas, the accordion, as well as barrel pianos. One of the ways that these instruments connect with each other is through the widespread use of floral-element decorations with characteristic spiraling patterns.

A parametric tool was developed using JavaScript with Three.js and Cables.gl. The generation works by establishing a grid ① where each cell contains a directional vector ②, with the cells near the grid’s boundaries exhibiting a repulsive force ③. A start point and a desired end point are defined ④: The start point receives parameters of velocity and angle ⑤, while the end point exerts an attractive force / gravity ⑥. Then a trajectory is calculated launching from the start point and being influenced by the forces of the vector field, landing on the end point ⑦. The remainder space is segmented into areas ⑧, where bezier curves are generated within them resulting in the final plant shape ⑨.

The generated shapes form the core identity, as they can be used as elements in posters, or “replacing” the exact patterns they are inspired by on the instruments themselves (see below). At the same time, the generator supports accepting song-related parameters, such as tempo, time signature, lyrics, and title, creating visual covers unique to each song (see above).

On December 2025, the GR Design Magazine released a special issue dedicated to Rebetiko, where 100 creatives exhibited 100 different posters on Rebetiko. The posters became part of the magazine itself, but were also showcased in a monthlong physical exhibition in Athens, Greece.

Using the logic of the generative system, the exhibited poster was also drawing inspiration from a Greek Post Office Stamp with an image of a barrel organ (see bottom left), released in Dec. 15, 1975, part of a series celebrating Greek Folk Instruments.

The poster connects traditional shapes with modern generative technology. Below are pictures both of the mocked-up poster, but also its physical presence in the magazine, and the printed 70x100cm exhibition version.