Brief

Brief
Brief
Title:
Computational Typography
Summative Deadline:
Friday 9 May 2014
Hand in Method:
All work to be submitted for by hand in to the studio
Unit Credit:
60 credits!
Computational typography brief
Brief
To explore the intrinsic qualities of programming to produce
typographic layouts that would be extremely time-
consuming to replicate using conventional design software.
Technically speaking for this project specifcally, it would
mean only using a text fle (in a form of a script, for example)
to produce a print-ready artefact.!
Ultimate goal
Brief
translating an idea into a clearly formulated set of
instructions that a computer can execute
thus looking at what only a computer can do
looking at the elemental particle of computer-aided
graphic design: the text string
understanding technology that will be used to predict an
outcome
using as little hand labour as possible to in the end
appreciate its value
What this project is about
Brief
generative design
conditional design
making 100 posters that look more or less the same
random trial and error to get an appealing result
What this project is not about
Brief
Technical mastery and innovation are part of the
rich history of visual design. The printing press is the
quintessential example of how a shift in design technology
can ripple through society. In the Twenty-First Century,
innovation in design often means pushing the role of
computers within the visual arts in new directions. Writing
software is something thats not typically associated with
the work of a visual designer, but theres a growing number
of designers who write custom software as a component
of their work. Over the last decade, through personal
experience, Weve learned many of the benefts and pitfalls
of writing code as a component of a visual arts practice, but
our experience doesnt cover the full spectrum. Custom
software is changing typography, photography, and
composition and is the foundation for new categories of
design practice that includes design for networked media
(web browsers, mobile phones, tablets) and interactive
installations. Most importantly, designers writing software
are pushing design thinking into new areas.
Casey Reas and Chandler McWilliams (2013)
Project overview
Brief
Up until the start of creative coding, design has been only
about producing an object that had existed on its own.
Thanks to code, the process of that design can now be
shown and shared to everyone in a completely reusable
and objective way. By comparison, typographic design
has always been about establishing a clear set of rules
and constraints which the various design elements obey
whereas computer programming relies on algorithms and
variables that follow a strict, universal logic.
What if in the near future, screen and paper were the same?
Would it imply that the same technology will be used to
describe how content will look for that new unifed medium?
Can we imagine that printed matter would be designed
using just text strings, like current Web pages are? What
if we could automate tasks such as placing text blocks,
shapes and headlines on a piece of paper using computer
code just like HTML parses repeated assets on a Web
page?
Of course InDesign already allows designers to automate
some tasks like breaking a text block into a number of
columns, or adjusting the current layout to a new one by
Preliminary thinking
ftting all the elements to the new column width. Others use
the built-in Javascript engine to write their own scripts (see
the Typography and Automation reference) but the current
Javascript implementation in InDesign is difcult to use.
Sure Processing has been out there for twelve years but
advanced typographic control is not its strong point. What
if there was a way accessible to designers to control every
aspect of InDesigns layer object model using code?!
What if it was already out there?
Brief
My objective is to use the basil.js library in conjunction with
InDesign to produce print-ready designs by relying as much
as possible on the text fle (the script) for the execution,
from the drafting stage to the fnal outcome.
The key challenge is to research which sort of designs are
impossible/too time consuming to achieve using manual
labour and fnd a way for the computer to do it.
The fnal outcome would attempt to answer how the
computer can really help the designer beyond the
commodity aspects of stability (managing long and
complex documents), reliability (sharing and saving fles)
and replicability (consistent results all the time, copy and
paste).
Assignment brief
Brief
Stage one: Research + Process
A series of small exercises to get acquainted with basil.js,
while building an archive of existing computational layouts
to answer one of the initial questions: what types of layout
can only a computer execute?
Stage two: Drafting + Design
Armed with better knowledge of basil.js and a clear design
objective, the second stage will consist in drafting ideas
and translating them into a formal language, a system of
instructions understandable by a computer (pseudo-code).
Stage three: Production
At this stage, design outcomes will be decided according to
the idea and the content in the printed artefact. Refnement
and polishing of the computational layout, additional
drafting of sub-ideas. Finalisation of design(s). Comparison
of the computational layout vs an identical layout by hand (if
possible) in terms of fle size and time spent.
Three project stages