» book review: Generative Gestaltung
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book review: Generative Gestaltung

Generative Gestaltung
Bohnacker, Groß, Laub, Lazzeroni
Verlag Hermann Schmidt Mainz, November 2009
472 pages, german. english version announced

A book about design through programming. Clearly aimed at the designer who is fed up with using merely digital versions of the same analog tools. It argues for the creation of ones own generative tools tools via coding. Generative tools that can produce a variety of different outputs following simple principles.

Even though quite big and heavy (which kind of resembles its pricetag) it is an overall beauty with lots of fullcolor pages and a classy layout. Both nice for reading as well as providing a very clear look when just skimming through.

The book is structured into 3 main sections: first a colorful collection of various works from different fields like print, video, architecture, ... demonstrates the already widespread use of generative design today. The second part "Grundlegende Prinzipien" consists of hands on introductory chapters about coding with color, shape, typography and bitmaps. The final section "Komplexe Methoden" concentrates on 6 popular, more complex algorithmic principles which are used to demonstrate the creation of exemplary tools. This last section is of course by no means a complete compendium of a designers algorithmic toolbox but it is definitely inspiring and will get the inclined reader hooked to search for more.

While all the books samples are realized and explained in processing this is not the typical processing book you would recommend to anyone who just wants to start learning processing. It is really more trying to take a designer who has no experience with programming by the hand and get him going.

The books accompanying websitehttp://www.generative-gestaltung.de provides all the samples discussed as free downloads. And this is where vvvv users may be interested in: the samples are a large collection of inspirational code and translating some of them to vvvv patches should make for a nice exercise on a cold winters day...

joreg, Monday, Jan 11th 2010 Digg | Tweet | Delicious 0 comments  
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Shoutbox

~4d ago

~8d ago

joreg: The Winter Season of vvvv workshops is now over but all recordings are still available for purchase: https://thenodeinstitute.org/ws23-vvvv-intermediates/

~14d ago

schlonzo: Love the new drag and drop functionality for links in latest previews!

~22d ago

joreg: Workshop on 29 02: Create Sequencers and Precise Clock Based Tools. Signup here: https://thenodeinstitute.org/courses/ws23-vvvv-08-create-sequencers-and-precise-clock-based-tools-in-vvvv-gamma/

~29d ago

joreg: Workshop on 22 02: Unlocking Shader Artistry: A Journey through ‘The Book of Shaders’ with FUSE. Signup here: https://thenodeinstitute.org/courses/ws23-vvvv-12-book-of-shaders/

~1mth ago

joreg: Talk and Workshop on February 15 & 16 in Frankfurt: https://visualprogramming.net/blog/vvvv-at-node-code-frankfurt/

~1mth ago

woei: @Joanie_AntiVJ: think so, looks doable

~1mth ago

xd_nitro: Anyone remember who increased projector brightness by removing some components that product the color?

~1mth ago

Joanie_AntiVJ: This looks super interesting (vectors over network) would anyone here know how to implement this in beta? https://github.com/madmappersoftware/Ponk