Python for Designers

There are lots of ways to generate and explore ideas in design, but one great tool for this is writing code. It’s easy to start with even a few conditions or settings—a color palette; a group of shapes; a series of sizes, positions, orientations, or textures; a typeface—and quickly generate many hundreds of variations and iterations. Using code to explain to a computer how to make something can help you think it through and understand it better yourself. Mistakes in the code, and unanticipated effects and outcomes, can sometimes result in something better than what you’d originally planned to make. They can even help you discover new design ideas, directions, and possibilities.

Participants in this workshop will learn the basics of writing in Python, a popular and powerful programming language, working in the free and user-friendly application DrawBot for the Macintosh operating system. No previous experience with Python is needed. You’ll create high-quality vector art, and work with text to explore DrawBot’s advanced typographic features. You’ll be able to save your creations as static or moving images (.jpgs and .pngs, animated .gifs and .mp4s), and even export to multipage .pdf files. You can treat these files as sketches, using them as starting points for work in other applications, like the Adobe Creative Suite. Or, you can refine them further in the DrawBot code editor to develop final products: animations, type specimens, posters, magazines, and books.

The first day of the workshop we’ll cover Python fundamentals and learn our way around DrawBot, then learn the basics of vector drawing, animation, and exporting files. On the second day, we’ll explore a few more advanced drawing and animation techniques, and then cover text formatting and layout methods.

Required Materials:

• Laptop with MacOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or newer installed
• Sketchbook and pens/pencils for notes and plans

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