Banner Maker

Design custom banners with all Minecraft patterns. Drag layers to reorder. Get crafting recipes and /give commands.

Commands

How Minecraft Banner Layering Works

Minecraft banners support up to 6 pattern layers on top of the base color (for a total of 7 layers including the base). Each layer consists of a pattern and a color, which are applied in order from bottom to top.

The layering system uses a painter's algorithm: each new pattern is drawn on top of all previous patterns. This means the order of layers matters significantly for the final appearance.

Pattern Application Order

When you add patterns to a banner:

  • Layer 0: Base banner color (the dye used to craft the original banner)
  • Layers 1-6: Additional patterns applied via loom or crafting

Patterns at higher indices (later in the list) are rendered on top of patterns with lower indices.

NBT Data Structure

Banner data is stored in NBT (Named Binary Tag) format. The key components are:

{
  BlockEntityTag: {
    Patterns: [
      {Color: 0, Pattern: "mc"},
      {Color: 4, Pattern: "cr"}
    ]
  }
}

Each pattern entry contains:

  • Color: A number 0-15 representing the dye color
  • Pattern: A 2-3 character code identifying the pattern type

Color Codes (0-15)

0  = White       8  = Light Gray
1  = Orange      9  = Cyan
2  = Magenta     10 = Purple
3  = Light Blue  11 = Blue
4  = Yellow      12 = Brown
5  = Lime        13 = Green
6  = Pink        14 = Red
7  = Gray        15 = Black

Pattern Codes

Minecraft uses short codes for each pattern type. Examples:

  • bs - Bottom Stripe
  • ts - Top Stripe
  • ls - Left Stripe
  • rs - Right Stripe
  • cs - Center Stripe (Vertical)
  • ms - Middle Stripe (Horizontal)
  • drs - Down Right Stripe
  • dls - Down Left Stripe
  • cr - Cross
  • sc - Square Cross
  • mc - Mojang Charge (requires special banner pattern item)
  • flo - Flower Charge
  • sku - Skull Charge
  • cre - Creeper Charge

The Loom

As of Java Edition 1.14, most patterns are applied using the Loom block rather than the crafting table. The loom uses:

  • 1 Banner (input)
  • 1 Dye (for pattern color)
  • Optional: Banner Pattern item (for special patterns like Mojang, Skull, Creeper, etc.)

Command Generation

The /give command for banners follows this format:

/give @p [color]_banner{BlockEntityTag:{Patterns:[...]}}

For Bedrock Edition, the syntax differs and uses numeric data values instead of NBT tags.

References