I'm going with a brick base again, so I was back to the egg carton brickwork.  I like to work on bricks with the panels still removable, but this can cause problems with alignment even with careful measuring.  If I were bricking a whole house, I would likely have to just deal with applying the material after assembly to make sure I had the rows as straight as possible.  Luckily, there is landscaping planned to disguise any obvious issues.  Plus, grouting tends to even things out a lot.

For the porch landing, I wanted a straight brick border with a herringbone center.  I started with the front step, using vertical bricks on the riser.  I couldn't find a true example of this in real life from a quick image search, but it doesn't look terribly out of place.  I just didn't want to carry the horizontal rows from the front and side walls around the porch step.  I'm replacing the porch post with a Houseworks turned post, so I had to fill in the space a little with strip wood.

For the herringbone center, I printed 1/4" square graph paper.  The bricks don't align to the grid perfectly as you glue them in place, but it is the best tool for keeping things relatively on track from row to row.  I spaced these very close since this is a walkway and I wanted to minimize the grout.  A welcome mat and plant pots are great for masking any inconsistencies.

Once I had the herringbone pattern glued to the paper, I cut a template to determine the best layout.

I marked the border, cut the herringbone section and glued the paper to the porch.  Now I can finish the straight border.

I still have the long side wall and back to brick as well.  There will also be a brick walkway later in the landscaping phase.