I realize that an entire post dedicated to programming probably isn't that appealing to a wide range of our audience so, just for you, I've added this special introduction:
I've never been all that interested in the whole LOLCats (type in lolcats into Google if you don't know what I'm talking about) thing, nor have I ever found it remotely funny. That is, until now.
Erik van Blokland introduced us to LOLCat programming language, a functional language some guy created to write functions and programs for his computer. Here is a sample showing some LOLCat programming language. Keep in mind that this actually works as a functioning language.
HAI CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
IM IN YR LOOP
UP VAR!!
1 VISIBLE VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10?
KTHXBYE
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
K THXBYE
I bet if I told you that Python (or other programming languages) will play a critical role as a tool for design innovation (and innovative design), you'd probably laugh at me. However, I am absolutely certain that using programming as a tool is already (and will continue become) an incredibly valuable tool for designers, both in terms of generating form, as well as within the design process itself. For instance, take a look at this:
To make this in a program like Illustrator would be near-impossible (if you think you can do it, I challenge you to). However, after writing a simple code (with the help of Just van Rossum), each of the images above can be generated in a fraction of a second, and are totally unique from one another. The final result of this will eventually be a typeface that uses python to generate continuous ribbons in the form of lettershapes.
At the conference we attended in Antwerp in early November, one of the key lectures was on the role of Python as a design tool. The presenters developed an interface/interpreter called Nodebox (http://nodebox.net/) which can be used to make things like this:
This is a typeface which can be customized to varying degrees of 'evilness' and was made entirely in Python.
Here is another example where they wrote a code that creates a 'mood-board' like collage drawing images from Google based on specified key-words. The relevance of something like this to visual research is quite obvious I think as the placement and scale of images are all determined by the relevance of the image to the key-word entered.
A final example by the same group creates colour charts based also on key-words specified by the user.
5 comments:
Ross: This is so cool. I'm downloading nodebox now... Now I need to learn Python, I guess.
I should have mentioned that the beginnings of what would become Nodebox were created in part with Just and Erik from Letterror. Anyway, check the gallery page on the nodebox site, they've done some cool stuff.
Being a programmer and a lover of typefaces, I find this post freakin' awesome.
It's true, I can't make those, but here's a cool Illustrator trick that you may not know.
1. Open up a new document
2. Click on the circle, square, line, shape tool, etc, whichever you want.
3. While you're dragging the shape out, hold down ~.
Ta Da!
Can you see that? It's the tilda.
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