In this paper, we report on the influence of shallow micro- and nanopatterned substrata on the attachment and behavior of a human fibroblast [human telomerase transfected immortalized (hTERT)] cells. We identify a hierarchy of textural guidance cues with respect to cell alignment on these substrates. Cells were seeded and cultured for 48 h on silicon substrates patterned with two linear textures overlaid at 90 degrees, both with 24 microm pitch: a micrograting and a nanopattern of rows of 140- nm-diameter pits arranged in a rectangular array with 300 nm centre-to-centre spacing. The cell response to these textures was shown to be highly dependent on textural feature dimensions. We show that cells align to the stripes of nanopits. Stripes of 30-nm deep nanopits were also shown to elicit a stronger response from cells than 160-nm deep nanopits.