I quite liked this extract from the book Generative Gestaltung.
For a few years now, generative design has been an insider tip at media art festivals and conferences. An interplay of complex information, graphic design and the opportunities provided by programming generate new, fascinating visual worlds that can visualize correlations and concurrences or allow chance to do the designing. We are experiencing a paradigm shift in design, which leads to new, formal visual worlds….
Yet, the essence of this shift remains hidden to many: the possibilities of programming languages as well as processing will change the role of the designer. Until now, designers used the tools developed for them by programmers, meaning that the persons doing the designing adapted themselves to the system. Generative design transforms design-schooled users of digital tools into programmers of their own individual digital toolbox. This opens up new visual vistas and fundamentally alters the design process. In the first stage, the artisan aspect takes a back seat and is replaced by abstraction and information; capturing the meta-level. So, generative design does not begin with formal questions, but with the recognition of phenomena.
Processing seems to be an interesting place to start when consdiering a visual representation of my thoughts thus far. It visually expresses code and can do so to quite a complex level, to the point where it can handle whole libraries of data in interesting ways.
Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool.
Some results from the introductory tutorials. I will endeavor to explore more complex projects, but also look into other tools to express node interactions in a visual manner.
I found this an interesting read, and thought it might be more relevant for Kelle, but that doesn’t mean I want to discount any possible influcences for myself at this (or any) stage.
The Beta Principle: Skip Perfection & Launch Early
On a practical level, you can only get feedback and real user data when the product is released. Google makes major changes to their products while they are in beta – and these changes are made based on rock-solid analytics. Also, if there are fundamental flaws in your assumptions about your product, you will realize them more quickly if it’s live. Rather than spending many months (and lots of money) on the finer details, getting early feedback can lead to priceless realizations.
It’s kind of an over looked idea for some of us more anxious designers who are keen to get everything right the first time, and I don’t know how viable a stratagey the beta release is for all design mediums (print for example), but it’s still worth considering.
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