Design By Numbers Course

Most art and technology projects pair artists with engineers or scientists: the artist has the conception, and the technical person provides the know-how. In this assignment you will be both, an artist and a computer scientist. You will learn to view the computer not as a substitute for brush and paint but as an artistic medium in its own right. Design By Numbers is an assignment on both the philosophy and nuts-and-bolts techniques of programming for artists.

This assignment is suited for 2nd and third year students. In special cases also to first year students, assuming that they meet the required level of visual design and JAVA. You must have a basic understanding of JAVA and visual design. This can be shown through participating in prior JAVA assignments or projects. Visual skills can be shown through participating in prior visual assignments.

After a short introduction to the project you will be introduced to iText. You will use this tool too create an artistic poster that demonstrates beauty and complexity. Through an interim meeting you will have an iterative circle that will help you to refine your design. Afterwards you will have to finalize your design and print it on a plotter.

You will have to create one A0 poster of your final design. The posters will be exhibited in public after the assignment.

List of Available (Background) Materials

Books

• Design By Numbers by John Maeda
• Maeda @ Media by John Maeda and Nicholas Negroponte
• Introduction to JAVA programming by Y. Daniel Liang

Online

• JAVA – http://java.sun.com/
• iText JAVA PDF library – http://www.lowagie.com/iText/
• Eclipse Java Editor (recommended) – http://www.eclipse.org/
• TextPad (not recommended) (http://www.textpad.com/)

Instructions

• Step-by-step tutorial on how to install and run iText with Eclipse to create PDFs
• Step by step installation guide for Windows
• Step by step installation guide for Mac
• Creating PDF files using iText

Results

• Daan Pothoven | Poster | Code
• Ruben Meeldijk | Poster | Code
• Stefan Zwegers | Poster | Code
• Mark Brand | Poster | Code
• Jasper Pieterse | Poster | Code
• Rutger Menges | Poster | Code (in Processing)
• Harry Vermeulen | Poster | Code
• Werner Bastianen | Poster | Code
• Jan Hoefnagels | Poster | Code (in Visual Basic)
• Henrik Rudstrom | Poster | Code
• Rik Runge | Poster | Code
• Hugo Jan Ruiter | Poster | Code