Recently we have been looking more and more into Generative Art and Design, Luca has been looking for a self initiated brief involving Generative Design for his final project and I have been interested in this field since tampering with Max MSP when studying Interaction Design at University.

Generative art refers to art that has been generated, composed, or constructed in an algorithmic manner through the use of systems defined by computer software algorithms, or similar mathematical or mechanical or randomised autonomous processes.

Joshua Davis’ generative art really stands out for me, he experiments with technology to create kaleidoscopic patterns, in which he creates commission based work for a wide range of clients including BMW, Motorola, Nike, Volkswagen, Sony and Nokia.

Joshua Davis is a New York based artist, designer, and technologist producing both public and private work for companies, collectors, and institutions. Since 1995, Joshua Davis has been using technology and computers as a medium to create projects that a recent Apple Pro Profile touted as infinitely interesting.

I have recently been blown away by Joshua Davis’ new iPhone application Reflect in which you can use Davis’ generative process to create your own abstract artwork.

In this interesting video, Joshua Davis explains how he utilizes technology to produce amazing Generative Art.

A new exhibition recently opened at the V&A Museum entitled “Decode: Digital Design Sensations“. The exhibition is a showcase of the latest developments of digital design from small screen based digital designs to large scale interactive installations.

The exhibition explores three themes: Code presents pieces that use computer code to create new works and looks at how code can be programmed to create constantly fluid and ever-changing works. Interactivity looks at works that are directly influenced by the viewer. Visitors will be invited to interact with and contribute to the development of the exhibits. Network focuses on works that comment on and utilise the digital traces left behind by everyday communications and looks at how advanced technologies and the internet have enabled new types of social interaction and mediums of self-expression.

I really enjoyed the exhibition, my favourite installation by far was the “Weave Mirror” created by Daniel Rozin, Weave Mirror assembles 768 motorized and laminated C-shaped prints along the surface of a picture plane that texturally mimics a homespun basket. When a user walks infront of the installation, they see a simple real-time reflection of themselves.

I also enjoyed some of Troika’s work including the mind-boggling digital zoe-trope. Unfortunately one of the exhibitions most hyped up installations was “being repaired” and unavailable while I was there and I feel like I missed out by not seeing the Opto-Isolator II.

If you’d like to see more information and examples to generative art, including processing art, generative branding and articles about generative design, visit Luca’s delicious page on the subject.

Wired have teamed up with Adobe to research and design an application for tablet devices to push the boundaries of digital content distribution.

It’s awesome to see some of the gestural interface on the tablet devices and it is very interesting to see how users can interact with the content. Even the advertisements are interesting!

The Posh&Becks exhibition was a collaboration with Tom McEvoy, we created a series of posters that were displayed around some of London’s most popular areas. Each poster was designed by a student at the London College of Communication. The exhibition was meant to showcase and highlight emerging talent at the LCC in the form of a creative exhibition, under the guidance of Joe and Jimmy.

The posters would be paired next to each other to show one back text side and an illustration side, the text side included information about the series and what number print it was, we left a little message at the bottom asking if they could email the poster and series numbers to us and the location the posters was found and at what time.

Hey,
I found a couple of your cool posters and simply wanted to report their
safety.
I found them lying in front of the Wieden Kennedy
<http://www.wklondon.com/> Offices in E1 last night around 1.30am.
They are:
Design 2 from series 1, print number 24
And
Design 1 from series 1, print number 2
Thanks very much – they will take pride of place in my Hackney Council
flat.

Keep up the good work.
Zang Greiner

———–

Hello,

Found 3 beautiful posters in Covent Garden this morning. I love them.
Will frame and keep Design 1 and give design 2 as a Birthday present to
a friend in Zurich. At least there was some reward for having to go
into work early. Thanks very much.

Found on Shelton Street:

Design 1, Series 1, No 20

Design 2, Series 1, No 5

Design 1, Series 1, No 3

Dirk

———–

Hi guys,

Just put your urban pest poster up in my kitchen in Frankfurt,
germany. A friend of mine found the poster in London and gave it to me
as a ‘house warming’ present.

Great idea, btw. Hope there are more posters to come.

All the best
Astrid Wunsch

———–

Series One poster One, image by Ashley Bloom.

The text side of the poster, it shows the issue number and poster number which we kindly ask the person that finds one to email us with as well as the location, making each poster unique.

Series One poster Two, image by Tom Mcevoy.

Series One poster Three, image by Luca Paulina

Series One poster Four, image by Tom McEvoy

Our limited edition gold posters were screen printed using a a reflective gold ink.

Photos of us putting the posters up, they are stuck to the wall using Blu-Tac so people could see that the posters can be taken.

Its the start of the a new year and a new decade and we want to start of with a bang, introducing our new brand and website, the most significant upgrade is in the form of a new blog which will hold lots of fascinating design related news, opinions and ideas.

There are several reasons why we decided to start writing a blog, firstly we want to share our vision with others and our experiences as we have the privilege of being in two very different places, Marc working currently in the industry and Luca studying at university (5 months left!). Its also a great opportunity to improve our writing skills, get some more exposure and network and learn from other designers.

2009 was a great year, it marked a significant step forward in our careers as designers and we want to build on that throughout 2010, where we’ve decided to work together more combining our skills to offer a more complete product.

Aswell as being a blog this will be a showcase for our portfolio, over the coming weeks we will be adding several months worth of work and improving and polishing whats already up. So be sure to subscribe to the RSS to keep up to date, we will also introduce a series of posts looking at Sustainability in design as well as the completion of a visual report into Sustainability at my university.

So thanks for checking out our new portfolio, and have a happy new year!

This is our design that we made for Alpha10 a new luxury British Business magazine for entrepreneurs and business professionals with an interest in Slovakia and Central Europe. The client wanted the magazine layout to be contemporary, clean and visual. The client produces high end publications and wanted this new magazine to fit along side their current range of material.

Masonio decided to move away from a traditional magazine navigation system and implemented coloured accents throughout the spreads so you are reminded where you are in the magazine without having to look for page numbers. We made the layouts around a 4 column grid that was flexible so we could display our images in a variety of ways to make sure it highlighted the image detail and worked with the content.

For the end of year show, I was chosen to run a small group (a total of 5 people) to design and curate the exhibition. The aesthetic was DIY and everything in the show was made by hand, it took us around 8 weeks to get the exhibition up and sorted. We wanted to show the FdA’s hands on approach to design by making everything by hand.

The promotional posters/broadsheets were screen printed, the front was a 5 colour screen print (in order of: black, green, magenta, purple, white) and the back was two colours (in order of: white, grey), they were then folded down and mailed out in the post, we made roughly 300 posters.

The publication that you could collect at the show could be made by the visitors, each student had their own postcard which once collected along with a front cover, contents page and back cover were then bound using several elastic bands.

Overal we had 1000+ people turn up to our show.

To see all the students and their respective postcards go to http://www.fdashow09.co.uk

These are the two logos we produced for Be Informed, the client wanted an informal logo so we decided to make two logos which promoted different aspects of the company. Both logos could be replicated into any colours as we wanted to incorporate a system for using colour throughout the branding.

The Be Informed Pearl (Red image) promoted togetherness while the Be Informed Swirl (Blue Image) which makes a ‘be’ shows the company as being fluid and simple. The client chose the Red Pearl, and at the moment we are incorporating it into stationary and the website.

The task was to document the workshops I attended while at university throughout one term, I decided to make a folding concertina book instead of going for something bound as I wanted to create something different that showed a journey from the start point to the end.

The book uses a very simple grid which allows for great flexbility with the type, the book was mainly type dominant, using a grid that is flexible allowed me to create 120 pages which were completly unique (except the opening 4 pages). To accompany the type I applied different colours to the books for example book one starts with the colour cyan and ends with magenta. As your read through the books you began to subtly notice a change in the colour from chapter to chapter, this was how you knew where you were in the book as it worked as a very simple and visual navigation system.

The books also had a light steam which changed colour as well running through the centre of the pages, the light stream inspired by fibre optics interacted with the text to create different shapes. The final products were printed on one long sheet of paper, the length totalled just under 5 meters. Each book was hand cut and folded and then finally finished off with simple pure black card for the front and back covers. The book was printed using matt inks which made the different colours pop from the page.

You don’t really now how big your family is until you’ve made a family tree. The task was to take something personal to us and create an info graphic which was clear, simple and beautiful. Nothing is more personal than a family tree, we traced back hundreds of members to our family, individually looking at different countries to get accurate information.

Our family can be categorized around 4 main families which we colour coded so they could be distinguished easily from each other, we then calculated how many generations there are in each family and round them down to make six different notable generations. For these generations we changed the colour slightly each time and also made the lines thinner to highlight current age, from looking at the generation they were in and their age you could tell when they had died.

We tracked back over 500 family members, around 200 of those are on this current family tree, we are currently working on v2.0 to get everyone in, we went as far back as 1814 and have managed to go back further with the new data acquired.

A concept and mockup for a potential taxi app for the iPhone, by using the gestural interface you can quickly send a out a request to any Taxi’s in your local area or use the advanced ordering system to specify a time and location.

These posters were created to highlight different aspects of London for tourists to visit while looking around, I decided to take a celebrity or figure head of each topic I had chosen and illustrate them and add tiny details to show their passion for Great Britain. Each poster was illustrated and drawn in Illustrator and then coloured to finally create 4 very simple and clean A2 posters.

The Rugby Portobello Trust had their print material re-branded by Murray Green Art & Design. The RPT desired to have their website re-designed to coincide with their new print brand along with improved usability and some added functionality. This included re-structuring of text based content into a more useable fashion, improving visual communication and increased user interactivity.

Upon consultation with the client it was decided that the new designs should be bright and vibrant in keeping with the new print design, moving away from the old dated branding with a strong emphasis on the orginisations role with it’s key user group of 25 in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea area.