Wrinkle patterns on the elastomeric substrate are gaining significant attention these days because of its wide variety of applications in the area of stretchable electronics, bacterial adhesion, surface modifications, etc. Development of controlled patterns on these wrinkled thin film surfaces can lead to different possible outcomes such as surface area enhancement, generation of rough surface topology, formation of template for nano-pillars, etc. which can further diversify and strengthen the application of wrinkled thin films. On a wrinkled surface, due to varying stress distribution and material plasticity along the slope, the indentation responses are expected to be a function of the position of indentation on the slope. In this work, this property is applied to generate controlled patterns on wrinkled polymeric thin film using nanoindentation (NI) technique. Synthesis of polymeric nano-pillars of uniform and varying heights and generation of enhanced surface area on flat and wrinkled surfaces are discussed here. Besides the inherent mechanical properties of a film material, the mechanical response of a thin film to indentation also depends on its thickness and the interfacial strength of adhesion with the substrate. These responses are studied for different thicknesses of wrinkled film with an objective to determine the necessary indentation characteristics for achieving target surface area enhancement and required nano-pillar heights. The height and the height distribution of these pillars can be varied by varying the film thickness, the applied indentation load, and the location of indentation. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd