This weekend at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, I finally began learning something I’ve been wanting to for a long time: Processing. What is Processing? It’s an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create or manipulate images, animations, and interactions. I have my friend Ken to thank for introducing me to Processing and generative design a few years ago.
I was a bit intimidated, since my last experience with coding was back in elementary school when used to play with LOGO and BASIC, but the two-day workshop conducted by Matt Ganucheau patiently walked us through the basics needed to code some sketches.
After an overview of the concept behind Processing, we were asked to code a critter. As we learned about functions, variables, arrays and classes, we made our critters move and react to events.
These are applets (not animations), and look different every time you reload the page. The only graphics not drawn from scratch within Processing are the mouths.
I just scratched the surface with the workshop and probably know less than 0.01% of what’s possible with Processing, but I left very inspired to continue learning. I’ll be posting more experiments as I make progress. I’m particularly interested in ways to automate mundane tasks during my design process, like exploring colour palettes
I’m opening an Etsy store! At cuantogarabato.etsy.com, I intend to offer many of those scrawls, squiggles and doodles I’ve put on paper over the years. For now, you can find my Drawn Quijote letterpress prints, as well as a series of silkscreen prints I’ve made a few years ago. More items will be added in the near future.
Cuanto Garabato means “so many doodles” in Spanish, and it’s my way of describing the motivation behind the work you’ll find there: blending my love for languages and handmade art that’s irreverent, a little mysterious and a lot of fun.
Please take a look and pass the word around to your friends. Thanks!
Last week, the AIGA SF invited Marc Català and Pablo Juncadella from Mucho in Barcelona to present to design students who they are and what they do. Besides showing some amazing work Mucho has done over the years that was both conceptually sound and superbly executed, they also shared 20 insights as to what they have learned as professionals along the way. Meant to inform and inspire the students in the audience, they went as follows:
On ideas
It’s all about ideas
Working hard pays off
Be open to things you hate
The best attitude is faith
Experiment brings true originality – and some weird shit too
On a design career
Working for others teaches you a lot at no cost
Teaming up helps
Teaching is the best way to learn
Asking questions never hurts – but asking stupid questions makes you look bad
On the studio
It’s all about being efficient, not about being quick
Clients come and go, relationships are forever
Don’t work for free, work for a dollar
Count the hours when budgeting, don’t count the hours when you’re at it
Designers need a creative space to work properly
On the client
Talking to the person who can say yes makes all the difference
The client needs creative space
Make it personal and don’t make it personal
It’s wise to choose the fights you can win
You are never better than your client
It’s all about service, service, service
All in all, great advice on par with their great work. Be sure to check out their website. Big thanks to Rob Duncan for bringing international talent of such caliber to these lectures!
Two rebranding projects have been recently featured in the book Relogo: Re-designing the brand, published by Sandu Publishing Co: a proposal re-branding for Pizzeria Delfina in San Francisco (developed in combination with Andy Baron and Ken Frederick), and the logo for Qval (a service that helps investors and companies transform private market data into private market intelligence).
As the Chinese publishing house explains,
Rather than presenting a new logo from scratch, Relogo aims to tell the story behind a brand, offering you a valuable resource on how to create something new from old. The ‘logo’ is an essential aspect in the design of branding. It plays an important role in presenting the visual identity and philosophy of a company, attracting audiences through shape or form. The book is divided into three sections – transformation of image, typeface and those of all-around. Relogo is a precursor into styles and trends in logo design and the perfect companion for the designers.
In between the two beach towns I visited while in Brazil, I squeezed an afternoon in Salvador. The Pelourinho neighbourhood (historical center of town) is as charming as it is scary, because of some of its inhabitants. Even with all the police presence, I didn’t feel very safe. Still, I managed to take some nice pictures of the place with my cellphone. Enjoy.
Ah, Pipa… what a beautiful place. Will I ever come across beaches like this again? I don’t typically post on this blog unless the topic is design related, but this place was so stunning that I feel like sharing. Hopefully the images do it justice.
This small beach town which I visited for a week in January, is located near Natal, in the northern state of Pernambuco, in Brazil. It has some of the most scenic coastlines I’ve ever seen.
Walking distance from the town, the closest beaches are Praia do Amor (great surfing spot), Praia das Minas (completely deserted, sometimes visited by marine turtles), Praia dos Golfinhos (no waves, visited by dolphins!), and Praia do Madeiro (it has some waves, and is also visited by dolphins). Nearby, by van or boogie, one can access lagoons (one with water the colour of Coca Cola!), an ecological sanctuary, cliffs… the list goes on.
I stayed at the Pousada Pomar da Pipa owned by a great paulista named Mario, and became friends with some cool Brazilians who were also staying there. At night, while the bar scene was very small, the culinary choices were quite varied, considering the size of the town. We tried lots of different restaurants, and even grilled some meat on the last night of our stay.
