Generative Design: Visualize, Program, and Create with Processing Author: Hartmut Bohnacker | Language: English | ISBN:
1616890770 | Format: PDF
Generative Design: Visualize, Program, and Create with Processing Description
Generative design is a revolutionary new method of creating artwork, models, and animations from sets of rules, or algorithms. By using accessible programming languages such as Processing, artists and designers are producing extravagant, crystalline structures that can form the basis of anything from patterned textiles and typography to lighting, scientific diagrams, sculptures, films, and even fantastical buildings. Opening with a gallery of thirty-five illustrated case studies, Generative Design takes users through specific, practical instructions on how to create their own visual experiments by combining simple-to-use programming codes with basic design principles. A detailed handbook of advanced strategies provides visual artists with all the tools to achieve proficiency. Both a how-to manual and a showcase for recent work in this exciting new field, Generative Design is the definitive study and reference book that designers have been waiting for.
- Hardcover: 472 pages
- Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press (August 22, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1616890770
- ISBN-13: 978-1616890773
- Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 8.3 x 1.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 4.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Purchased this book after the German edition received rave reviews, now in an English translation. Those familiar with the Processing programming language probably need no introduction to this book, which is why there probably aren't any reviews (I dare say it doesn't need any). Still, I thought I would share an opinion.
This really is a beautiful book, a chest of techniques, methods and examples for working through the Processing language in the context of generative design. It's broken into two sections, with the first quarter of the book devoted to glossy full color 'plates' (if u like), surveying artists working in the generative design field. The rest of the book is dedicated to the Processing language, broken into two sections - basic examples, and then more complex methods.
The textbook pages have a non-glossy paper feel, which in and of themselves are a lovely texture and weight. In particular the binding of the book is something of an achievement - each page seems to fall gently over the next, leaving an open book that never needs much creasing or pressing to get the spine to lay flat. It is a heavy book, so probably best set next to a computer and a cup of coffee as you wade through the many examples.
It has to be said that the examples here are also (expectedly) beautiful, and unlike other programming books, they don't resort to a uninspiring aesthetic or to ugly sketches that no one wants to code. The sketches in this book are simply gorgeous and the kind of thing that probably made you want to get started with Processing in the first place.
The layout is also fantastic, with clear pointers to what each part of the code means and does, not to mention great full color representations of the sketches variations.
I was not hoping to find anything new in a book about Processing and vvvv after successful predecessors written by Casey Reas and Ben Fry or by Daniel Shiffman. When I got the book last week I realized the scarcity of a `design' book about generative design and related programming languages. Generative Design is a seminal book in its field as it fill this gap between the code and image in a very `designerly' way. Authors and the editor of the book structures and lays out its content explicitly and in a very visual way yet still founding a concrete base for the understanding of the phenomenon.
First of all, its graphic/interaction design and print quality implies a very dynamic way of navigating the book and the website accompanies it. In many of the books related to digital design, visuals are not more than being proof of concepts. In Generative Design even the formal layout itself is inspiring enough. Scale is a great deal while printing coded graphics. Designer of the book overcomes this issue by organizing figures with a variable density over the book. Also the hardcover and the premium paper are other factors enhancing the experience.
The book speaks to a greater art and design community of various practices like architects, product designers, sculptors, type designers as well as graphic and interaction designers. Throughout the showcase sequence and the examples given in the chapters there is a subtle focus on typography. Employment of graphic coding technics to experiment on the anatomy of typeface or creating generative images with building blocks of type are quite interesting endeavors yield to visually compelling results. Needles to say that a significant number animation enthusiasts constitute a big portion of the readers who are potentially interested in the book.
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