A magnetized or unmagnetized body (10) of a permanent magnet material is heated in a pattern by a laser beam (18) to a temperature sufficient to lower the magnetic coercivity of selected heated regions of the pattern and then exposed to a magnetic field to magnetize or to re-magnetize the selected heated regions. A pattern guide (30) is used in the process to densify the pattern. In the process, energy (18) is directed through the pattern guide (30) and onto the selected regions, whilst the pattern guide (30) prevents or minimizes heating of unselected portions of the body (10). Magnets so produced can have very high pole density, digital encoding and analog patterns having gradually varying local field strength.