I'm not very familiar with processing but I would look into something like this:

Find the mathematical formula for a figure 8.  There might even be some tool like mathematica where you could draw the geometry and it would tell you what the formula is.

Make your object a class with x and y positions as variables that can be fed into it (sorry, I'm omitting the proper jargon).  You can also calculate it and draw it in draw without a class but I don't know precise & concise language for describing that.

Increment through the formula with a for .. next loop and get the x and y positions of each increment.

Call the object class with the x and y positions for each increment.

hi louis2048
thanks for the reply, really neat and colourful design I like it :)
I'll definitely give your code a closer look at it's alot neater than the hack I put together this morning, which does the job I was looking for.

1. float x = 0.0;
   void setup() {
     size(300,300);
     smooth();
     textAlign(CENTER,CENTER);
   }
   
   void draw() {
     background(100);
    
     text("So simple!",((sin((x/PI)/2))*50)+width/2,((sin((x/PI)))*50)+height/2);
     x++;
     //println(x);
   }

messy I know, but I've only spent the last 5 mins putting it together. Thanks again really dig the effect!
btw the width setting and height settings with the frame rate multiplier r most excellent, it makes for a really versatile script :)