DESIGN.

I lately experimented with the application of generative algorithms to type, resulting in some interesting letterforms:

 

Click here to download "Generative", one of the resulting fonts, as a True Type font file. The font is free to use under a Creative Commons Attribution License. To install the font in Windows, simply copy it to your Windows Font folder (WINDOWS/FONTS). To install the font on Mac OS, drag the file to the systems folder. The font - see a glyph example below- consists only of uppercase letters A to Z.

Architectural fantasies: Constructive variations on a cube, another result of my work on generative algorithms for design - click the thumbnails to see the large (1600x1600 pixel) images:

In the traditional brand development process, a brand needs to transport its own set of values. It is developed as a static sign to mark out and "brand" on paper, packaging, car hoods, computer cases etc. These brands are essentially sign stickers put on any medium, irrespective of the inherent qualities of a medium. That worked well enough as long as all media have been by definition static - catalogues, name cards, car hoods etc. While working well enough on static backgrounds, these brands appear superimposed on dynamic media. The standard brand development process remains little changed and is still essentially geared for static backgrounds, mostly paper. However, less and less information is actually consumed on paper - one of the reasons why even quality newspapers such as the New York Times are in trouble.

To create an identity which is not superimposed, but blended into the medium, I experimented with parallel development. The identity for Design Zone, a support framework for creatives in the Gulf region, was developed from the start across three identity devices in three different dimensions: A community application in 3D, a website in 2.5D and the logo in 2D with the added dimension of time. The advantages of the process is that three parallel developments interweave in time, and during the creative process ideas for one medium cross over into the other two developments. Thus the brand is not just stuck onto the surface, but driven by underlying visual narratives and interwoven into the dynamic media.

The first step is to explore underlying narratives which can drive the message from within the media which carry it. To visualize the meaning of Design Zone I started with the idea of an abstract "landscape of creativity" - a virtual space of imagination. Below the first rough concept renderings of this "imaginative space", colored in hues of turquoise:

The second development was the sign. It started out as a collection of different animated signs rather than a single logo, as the idea was to express the diversity of creative expression on the basis of Islamic art and decoration: geometry. From there the logo developed into a single sign which yet is many signs: Over time, driven by an algorithm, the sign takes on different shapes and colors. Here some of the the initial concept graphics:

Below the final design of the dynamically changing logo.


For the site, I wanted to suggest the mission of Design Zone as a catalyst for creativity through a visual narrative. The logo, representing the spirit of Design Zone, should appear as an actor with character. In the visual narrative, the logo helps to realize and bring forward creations. It does that by by bringing them out from the depths of imagination into reality, helping to make them into actual expressions. This narrative is told by making the logos accompany and slightly push information windows from the depths of the "imaginative space" into clear view - a narrative for the experience of consciousness in which we form imaginative artifacts from "blurry" sensory impressions.

The idea of an "imaginative space" also served as the basis for developing a creative community site. Below two screenshots showing one of the features, an embedded 3D creation application running in "the cloud", designed to be intuitive to use.

The primary advantage of this parallel design process is the transfer of design ideas between parallel developments. This favors the embedding of underlying metaphorical design ideas across all media used. 

Spaces of Memory: A photographic travel through space and time, with visits to Bangkok, Beijing, Brasilia, Cairo, Colombo, Graz, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Paris, Rarotonga, Salzburg, San Francisco, Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo, Venezia, and Vienna.

The places here are places where things once happened. These are spaces of memory  - spaces where something was. This can be spaces where something was anticipated, but did not arrive; Or places where something, which was there, is gone. Brasilia is a case in point, a place of a grand ambition which was stopped, yet the ambition still lingers. In Beijing and Shanghai history happened again and again, but was - and is - repeatedly replaced. Vienna is full of past and the present at times tries to fit in. In all these places there is something which is not seen, but remembered - in the light, in traces and artifacts, and in the minds of people.

F O R M A L P O P Superstructures is the result of a process of random selection. First I created the images as stand-alone graphics. Following a creative technique pioneered by the Surrealists, I then wrote a short narrative to connect randomly selected images through keywords taken from news media. It features, of course, both the financial crisis and global warming, the two topics governing the news. It also features investors and the windmills of your mind, in a comic strip picture book with the aesthetics of old postcards and school infographics, connected randomly by a somewhat surreal-dystopian dime novel narrative.
http://formalpop.mariogagliardi.com

Back in 2002 and 2003 I experimented with a few approaches towards sketch - and gesture-driven art generation. One idea was that users would, with a few strokes and gestures, be able to create expressive graphical animations. The resulting engine takes in user-generated strokes and, depending on gestures made with the mouse, generates animated variations. See here an example animation.

The prototype interface is very simple with two sketchpads, below the generated animated graphics:

Try the basic functions for yourself with this online version which I called Sumi-e botany for its graphic effect. Sketch something into the top and bottom sketchpads (stem and leaf), move the slider at the bottom (environment temperature) and hit "create plant" - voilà! The mouse gesture input for controlling the animation movement is here a slider located below the resulting artwork. 

A new glimpse at the possibilities of generative design to explore its potential for a creative approach beyond traditional discipline boundaries:
http://www.mgstrategy.com/looking.htm

A selection of results from my workshop "Hotel Scenario: Designing the Future of Hospitality" this September.

Here shown:
Nemo explorer by K. L. Hartman, a device to - no, not to find the stereotyped sightseeing spot, but to smartly get lost.

Just completed: Mnemonic Metropolis, a designerly investigation into place and memory in 20 scenes.

The relationship between places and memory was the starting point for an exploration of places which should be in a "somewhere back in your head" way familiar, yet in a "where no man has been before" way new and unfamiliar. The result are memorials without memory and roadside shrines without roads, land art and architectural visions, when appropriate accompanied by passages from Invisible cities by Italo Calvino, Das Schloss by Franz Kafka, and Solaris by Stanislav Lem.

TV is in crisis. Reality shows make reality the worst imaginable, soaps re- and run out of ideas, news are spinned with obvious agendas, and interactive TV is still utopia. The epitomatic machine of radical one-way communication must get out of living rooms and into the hallway to serve its only remaining purpose: interior decoration.

The Painteevee design concept is the screen as a canvas. It plays the umpteenth rerun of your favorite soap without sound, but with an attitude. Images are continually graphically altered by means of image filters to evoke the effect of an animated painting.



More concepts at allevio design:
project 4391
parallel places

Avatars based on Japanese Noh masks


Plane interior (allevio project parallel places)



Installation "organisational behaviour"


Food keepsake plates (allevio project 4391)



Connection phone (allevio project 4391)



Dermal strata phone (allevio project 4391)

Experimenting with evolutionary narratives:

Create your own trees in the style of Japanese Sumi-e paintings.
Explore always different graphical storylines for Romeo and Juliet.
Create graphical lifeforms and observe how they interact and evolve.
Let your doodles dance in 3d space.


allevio conjunctures