2 Algorithmic Design

Why learn algorithmic design?

What kind of design most interests you? It may be that you have never thought that algorithms could have any part to play in design. However, these ways of making and thinking about design are becoming increasingly important in the design world.

Watch the following interview with Aleksandra Jovanić to get a sense of how a contemporary artist and designer works with algorithms.

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Transcript: Video 1  Design practioner interview: Aleksandra Jovanić talks about working with algorithms

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ALEKSANDRA JOVANIĆ

My name is Aleksandra Jovanić. I’m Associate Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Serbia. I teach at New Media department. And actually, my set of subjects is called Technology of New Media.

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On a day-to-day basis, I’m working as a professor in the faculty, but also I’m working on my art practice. I see myself recently as mostly doing generative art. That means I’m, in part, coding systems that, when put in motion, give us various interesting and exciting results. In other words, I’m writing code. And code can be executed. And most of the time, code is making some kind of visual output. Sometimes, it’s not only visual output, it can be also audio or the combination of audio-visual output.

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My most recent project, actually, the project I’m still working on, is an exploration of old apparatus or device called phenakistoscope. And it’s considered one of the first devices that allowed us to see moving images. And now I’m exploring how new media can work with old traditional devices.

So I’m making through code phenakistoscopes. I’m making colourful discs that when put on record player through a camera with a fixed frame rate can be seen as continuous looping animations. It has a history of traditional media in it. And it can be done by hand, like with traditional animation when you’re drawing each frame.

Here is the same process, but with using code, I can generate really fast different variations of the same concept. I’m adding a lot of randomness inside of these phenakistoscopes. So with each reload, I’m getting a different disc, different animation. So it would be labour hard to draw each disc by hand. It could be done. But this system, generative systems, give us a lot of exciting results. By incorporating randomness, we’re always getting different results and, sometimes, we get unexpected results depending on the constraints we are putting inside of the system.

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So for years, it was influenced by technology or the devices, machines, artists used. And for years, abstract geometry was dominant type of visualisations. So now I see people are more exploring figurative, tactile designs, designs that have-- that simulate more nature or more traditional mediums. So maybe this field is becoming more recognisable or more dominant inside of generative art, but I don’t see that abstract or geometric style is going out of style. So basically, it will stay. So this might be something for the future.

End transcript: Video 1  Design practioner interview: Aleksandra Jovanić talks about working with algorithms

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Video 1  Design practioner interview: Aleksandra Jovanić talks about working with algorithms

This course involves learning to play with algorithms by tweaking code. But it will not attempt to teach you to program! That is too big a task for this short course, but if you are interested in further developing this skill, links will be provided to appropriate resources.

In this course, you will learn how to tweak code to make it do what you want. You won’t necessarily understand all the code you will be working with, but, along the way, you will get a feeling for the potential of algorithmic design and learn some of the fundamental principles of algorithmic design.

This course should help you to look at all kinds of design in a new way, and might help you with many design problems and interventions. While people sometimes claim that computers take control away from us, computation actually opens up many new possibilities. Working with algorithms means that designers have to make more – not fewer – choices!

Figure 3  The complex curves of Zaha Hadid Architects’ Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan were only possible using algorithmic tools

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The image shows an external view of a building which has an intricately curved roof that could only be designed using algorithmic tools.

Figure 3  The complex curves of Zaha Hadid Architects’ Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan were only possible using algorithmic tools...

A major part of algorithmic design involves developing judgement and learning how to make aesthetic and pragmatic decisions as a designer. So, learning about algorithmic design will help you to develop your personal judgement about what are good and bad uses of algorithms – what works, and what doesn’t.

Since 2022, the appearance of AI tools has radically transformed graphic design, illustration, and architecture through the use of automatically generated images and layouts. Figure 4 looks like it was drawn by hand, but it was actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI) via the software tool Adobe Firefly. It was created using the text prompt: ‘What does algorithmic design look like?’. Acquiring an understanding of the logics and principles of algorithms will equip you to navigate the practical and ethical design challenges that AI tools will bring. Crucially, you will begin to understand some of what goes on behind the scenes when designers use ready-made design tools.

Figure 4  An AI-generated idea of what algorithmic design looks like

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This computer-generated image shows a person standing in a room surrounded by colourful red, blue, and yellow rectangular shapes that cover all the surfaces. At the end of the room is a glowing white circular light.

Figure 4  An AI-generated idea of what algorithmic design looks like

Even if, in the future, you don’t intend to work with computers in such an in-depth way, having knowledge of these skills is still useful when working with other professionals, such as programmers and engineers, who you are likely to work with when collaborating on large design projects. Understanding how algorithms work gives you an appreciation for the technical aspects and roles in design, and the labour that takes place behind the scenes in complex design projects.