Human Design Bodygraph: Annotated Map and Printable Blank
A bodygraph is the diagram at the heart of every Human Design chart: nine shapes (the centers), 36 lines between them (the channels), 64 numbered points (the gates), and two columns of numbers down the sides. Your Type, Authority and Profile are all read off this one picture. Once you know four rules, you can read any bodygraph's structure yourself:
- The red column on the left is your Design. The black column on the right is your Personality.
- Every number in those columns switches on one gate.
- A channel lights up only when the gates at both ends are on.
- A center is colored in only when a complete channel reaches it.
Below is an engine-drawn chart for a made-up birth moment, taken apart piece by piece, and a blank bodygraph you can print and fill in by hand.
The example uses a made-up birth moment (30 May 1991, 3:20 a.m., Tokyo). No real person or customer is shown. The chart was computed and drawn by the YourHumanDesign chart engine, the same one behind our free chart calculator.
Every part of the bodygraph, in one table
| Part | What you see | How many | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Centers | Triangles, squares and a diamond | 9 | The main themes of a design: thinking, voice, identity, drive, instinct, feeling, pressure |
| Defined center | A shape colored in (gold in our charts) | 0 to 9 per chart | A theme that runs the same way in you all the time |
| Undefined center | A white shape | 0 to 9 per chart | A theme you take in from other people and feel more strongly |
| Gates | Small numbers on the edges of the centers | 64 | Single activations, one per hexagram of the I Ching |
| Channels | The lines between two gates | 36 | A complete connection between two centers |
| Design column | Red numbers, left side | 13 activations | The part of you that runs in the background (unconscious) |
| Personality column | Black numbers, right side | 13 activations | The part of you that you recognize (conscious) |
| Definition | How the colored centers group together | 5 kinds | Whether your defined parts form one block or several islands |
The Type, Authority, Profile and Incarnation Cross printed next to the graph are all worked out from these parts, as shown further down.
Red left, black right: the two columns
The Design data is the red column. It sits on the left side of the chart. It is calculated for the moment the Sun stood 88 degrees earlier on the zodiac than at your birth, which works out to about three months before you were born. Jovian Archive's Human Design glossary describes this as a calculation based on the time it takes the Sun to move 88 degrees of arc.
The Personality data is the black column. It sits on the right side. It is calculated for your birth moment itself.
Jovian Archive's page on Personality and Design frames the black as what you consciously identify with and the red as the body. In plain terms:
- Black gates tend to be traits you would agree you have.
- Red gates tend to be traits other people notice in you before you do.
- Striped gates and channel halves (red and black together) mean the same gate is switched on from both sides. You get that theme both ways. In the example, gate 54 in the Root is striped, because the Personality North Node and Neptune and the Design Neptune all sit in gate 54.
On our charts, each column lists its 13 activations in this order: Sun, Earth, Moon, North Node, South Node, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Other chart tools may put the rows in a different order, so match them by planet name, not by position. Each entry reads gate.line. "37.5" means gate 37, line 5.
Your Profile is hiding in the top row of each column
Look at the Sun in both columns. In the example, the Personality Sun (right, black) is 16.3 and the Design Sun (left, red) is 37.5. Take the line numbers, Personality first: 3/5. That is the Profile, and it is why a Profile can change when a birth time is off (see below). The full story of the twelve Profiles, including why six of them are much rarer than the other six, is in the Human Design profiles guide.
The nine centers, and how often each is colored in
The shapes sit in the same place on every bodygraph. The right-hand column below comes from our engine: it's the share of simulated charts in which each center is defined.
| Center | Shape and place | Kind of center | Defined in (simulated) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Head | Triangle at the top, pointing up | Pressure | 26.6% |
| Ajna | Triangle below the Head, pointing down | Awareness | 46.1% |
| Throat | Square in the upper middle | Expression | 68.9% |
| G center | Diamond in the middle | Identity and direction | 59.0% |
| Heart (Ego) | Small triangle to the right of the G | Motor | 37.7% |
| Sacral | Square below the G | Motor | 69.6% |
| Spleen | Triangle on the lower left | Awareness | 58.6% |
| Solar Plexus | Triangle on the lower right | Motor and awareness | 52.7% |
| Root | Square at the bottom | Pressure and motor | 60.3% |
Simulated: 4,000 random birth moments between 1950 and 2009, charted by the YourHumanDesign engine in September 2026. These are not survey or customer figures. With N = 4,000, a share near 50% is accurate to about ±1.6 points.
The Head is the center most often left white: nearly three in four charts have it undefined. The Sacral is defined in about 70% of charts, which matches Generators and Manifesting Generators (the two Sacral Types) making up about 70% of the simulated births.
The average chart in the same simulation had 4.79 of 9 centers defined. Exactly one defined center never happens, because a channel always defines two at once.
For what each center does when it is colored versus white, and for the deeper guides on single centers, go to the nine Human Design centers.
How a center gets colored in: gate, channel, center
Step 1: a planet switches on a gate. Each of the 26 numbers in the two columns lands on one of the 64 gates. The gate gets colored in red, black or both. Several planets can land on the same gate, so a chart usually shows fewer than 26 colored gates. The example shows 20.
Step 2: two gates at opposite ends make a channel. Every channel joins one gate in one center to one specific gate in another center. When both ends are on, the channel is complete. The glossary puts it simply: a channel is created by the joining of two activated gates. It doesn't matter which side each gate comes from:
- Channel 17-62 (note 1 in the diagram) joins the Ajna to the Throat. Gate 17 comes from the Design Venus (red) and gate 62 from the Personality Venus (black). One red end and one black end still make a whole channel.
- Channel 37-40 (note 2) joins the Solar Plexus to the Heart. Both of its gates come from the Design Sun and the Design Earth, so the whole line is red.
Step 3: a complete channel colors both of its centers. Channel 17-62 defines the Ajna and the Throat. Channel 37-40 defines the Solar Plexus and the Heart. That gives the example exactly four defined centers.
What doesn't count. A gate with no partner is a hanging gate. It has a color and a meaning, but it defines nothing on its own:
- Gate 26 in the Heart (note 3) is on, but its partner, gate 44 in the Spleen, is off.
- Gate 54 in the Root (note 4) is on from both sides, and it still hangs, because gate 32 is off.
- The G center (note 5) has two gates on, 1 and 2, and it is still white. Neither gate's partner is active, so no channel reaches it.
A center full of colored gates can still be undefined. Only a complete channel colors a center.
The full list of all 36 channels, with the gates and centers each one joins, is in the Human Design channels guide.
Definition: how the colored parts connect
Definition describes how your defined centers link up. Follow the colored channels from center to center. Every group you can walk through without crossing a white center counts as one "island". The number of islands is your definition.
The example chart has two islands: Ajna and Throat on one side, Heart and Solar Plexus on the other. Nothing links them, so it is a split definition (note 6 in the diagram).
| Definition | What the bodygraph shows | Share of simulated charts |
|---|---|---|
| No definition | No center colored in at all (this is the Reflector) | 1.0% |
| Single | All defined centers form one connected block | 39.8% |
| Split | Two separate blocks | 46.9% |
| Triple split | Three separate blocks | 11.8% |
| Quadruple split | Four separate blocks | 0.6% |
Same simulation as above: 4,000 random birth moments, YourHumanDesign engine, September 2026.
The first row is easy to overlook. A Reflector's bodygraph has every center white, so there is nothing to connect and no definition at all. It is unusual for 26 activations to complete not a single channel, which is why Reflectors are rare: 38 of the 4,000 simulated charts. Read more about how that works in practice in the Reflector guide.
Split, not single, is the most common kind in our simulation. In Human Design, people with a split are said to be drawn to others whose gates or channels bridge it. None of the five kinds is better than another. They describe how your energy is organized, not how good it is.
Where the labels next to the graph come from
None of the labels printed beside the bodygraph add new information. Each one is read from a specific part of the graph:
| Label | Read from | Rule in one line |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Sacral, motors, Throat | Sacral defined: Generator, or Manifesting Generator if a motor also connects to the Throat. Sacral white: Manifestor if a motor connects to the Throat, Projector if not. No centers defined: Reflector |
| Authority | Which centers are defined | Solar Plexus defined always means Emotional. Otherwise the Sacral, then the Spleen, then the Heart, then a G-to-Throat link decide. Projectors with only Head, Ajna or Throat defined get Mental (Environmental). Reflectors are Lunar |
| Profile | The Sun row in each column | Personality Sun line, then Design Sun line |
| Incarnation Cross | Sun and Earth gates in both columns | The four gates, plus an angle that follows from the Profile |
| Definition | How the defined centers group | Count the separate islands |
Run the example through that table. The Sacral is white and no motor reaches the Throat (the Heart and Solar Plexus island never touches it), so it is a Projector. The Solar Plexus is defined, so the Authority is Emotional. The Sun rows give 3/5. The Sun and Earth gates, 16 and 9 on the black side and 37 and 40 on the red side, give the Incarnation Cross.
Each label has its own guide: the five Types, the seven Authorities, the Profiles and the Incarnation Cross.
How much does the birth time move the picture?
The two columns are calculated from an exact moment, so a wrong birth time can redraw the bodygraph. We measured how often that happens.
We took 2,000 random birth moments and compared each chart with the chart the same person would get if the recorded time were off. The table shows the share of births where the Type, the Authority or the Profile came out different:
| If the recorded time is off by | Type, Authority or Profile changes |
|---|---|
| 30 minutes early / late | 5.8% / 6.2% |
| 1 hour early / late | 11.1% / 12.3% |
| 2 hours early / late | 21.3% / 21.6% |
| Unknown time entered as 12:00 noon | 46.9% |
Simulated: 2,000 random birth moments (1950–2009), YourHumanDesign engine, September 2026. With N = 2,000, figures near 10% are accurate to about ±1.3 points and figures near 50% to about ±2.2.
The Profile is the most sensitive of the three. The Sun changes line roughly once a day in each column, so almost every calendar day contains two Profile switch points. With the time one hour late, the Profile changed in 9.6% of the simulated births and the Type in 2.6% (8.5% and 2.2% with the time one hour early).
Now the worked example. Move its fictional birth time an hour either way and the bodygraph stays the same: the same 20 gates, channels and centers, with only the Moon's line number shifting. But enter the same date with a noon placeholder and four activations land in new gates (the Moon, Mercury and Mars on the black side, the Moon on the red side). Gates 2, 26 and 64 disappear, gates 11, 23 and 47 appear, and the chart gains two extra channels, 11-56 and 23-43. The same four centers stay colored, so the Type and Authority hold, but the channel list is wrong. Across that whole day, the engine's hourly check gives a 3/5 Profile for 18 of the 24 hours, 3/6 for 3 and 4/6 for 3.
If your time is uncertain, Human Design without a birth time covers what you can still trust and how to narrow it down.
Print a blank bodygraph and fill it in
Filling in a blank bodygraph is the fastest way to learn the map, because you place every piece yourself. Both versions below are original drawings from the same geometry as our calculator, free to print for personal use.
- Download the bodygraph worksheet as a PDF (US Letter, landscape, with empty Design and Personality columns)
- Download the bodygraph worksheet as a PNG image
- Download the plain blank bodygraph as a PDF (US Letter, portrait, all 64 gates)
- Download the plain blank bodygraph as a PNG image
How to fill it in:
- Get your two columns. Enter your birth date, time and place in our free Human Design chart calculator. It needs no email, and it lists all 26 activations.
- Copy the columns. Write each planet's gate.line into its box: the red Design values in the left-hand boxes, the black Personality values in the right-hand boxes.
- Shade the gates. Circle every gate number you wrote down, in red or black. Use both colors when a gate appears in both columns.
- Find the complete channels. Trace a channel only when the gates at both ends are shaded.
- Color the centers. Fill in every center that a complete channel touches. Leave the rest white.
- Count the islands. That's your definition.
When you're done, compare your drawing with the calculator's chart. If they match, you can read the structure of any bodygraph on your own. For the order to read the labels in, from Type to Authority to Profile, how to read your Human Design chart walks through it step by step.
What a bodygraph can't tell you
The bodygraph is a model for self-reflection. It describes tendencies in how you might work best. It does not predict events, measure worth, or diagnose anything about body or mind, and it is no substitute for a qualified professional when you need one.
It is also only as exact as the moment it is built from. A guessed time can move a channel or a Profile line, as the numbers above show, so treat any single detail from an uncertain time as a draft.
Common questions about the bodygraph
What do the red and black lines mean in Human Design?
Black lines and numbers are your Personality, calculated for your birth moment: the traits you consciously recognize. Red lines and numbers are your Design, calculated for about three months earlier (when the Sun was 88 degrees back): traits that run in the background and that others often see first. The red column sits on the left of the chart and the black column on the right.
What does it mean when a gate is red and black?
It means the same gate is activated from both calculations, once in your Design and once in your Personality. The theme runs both consciously and unconsciously. On a chart it shows as a striped gate or channel half. Like any other gate, it still defines nothing on its own unless its partner gate is also on.
Is there a blank Human Design chart I can print?
Yes. The worksheet above has all nine centers, all 64 gate numbers and empty Design and Personality columns. The plain version is the bodygraph alone. Both are free to download as a PDF or a PNG image.
How do I get my bodygraph for free?
Enter your birth date, birth time and birth city into our free chart calculator. It draws your bodygraph with no email or account and lists both columns, so you can fill in the worksheet. If you don't know your time, it shows which parts of the chart stay the same all day.
One thing to do next
Print the worksheet and fill it in from your own chart, all six steps, by hand. Doing it once is the quickest way to make the four rules at the top of this page stick. Once the structure is familiar, our personalized Human Design reading interprets what your particular channels, gates and centers mean together, in plain language.
Sources
- Jovian Archive, Human Design Dictionary: definitions of the bodygraph, gates, channels, centers, the 88-degree Design calculation and the kinds of definition (single, split, triple split, quadruple split and none).
- Jovian Archive, Personality and Design: The Black and Red: the black Personality and red Design data.
- Jovian Archive, The Mandala and the Bodygraph: nine centers, 36 channels and 64 gates, and how definition forms.
- Jovian Archive, What Is Human Design?: the system's origin with Ra Uru Hu in 1987 and the two sets of data calculated from birth date, time and place.
- YourHumanDesign engine statistics, run 2026-09-28: 4,000 random birth moments (1950–2009) for center and definition shares, 2,000 for birth-time sensitivity. Simulated, not customer data.
How we made this: drafted with AI assistance, fact-checked against Jovian Archive's glossary and bodygraph pages, extended with YourHumanDesign engine data (simulated births, run 2026-09-28) and engine-drawn diagrams, and edited by YourHumanDesign Editorial on 2026-09-28. Interpretation for self-reflection, not medical or mental-health advice.
