Focus

Philosophy and Exploration

With this new assignment I’d like to turn a new leaf. I don't think the work I’ve done so far is terrible and it's not exactly that I need to put more effort into the assignments, but I know I can do a lot better. 

The trick will be to focus.

For the blog that means lots of medium blog posts that show every step of development and inspiration.  Each must have an image and illustrate one thought.  To signify this new beginning I’ve changed the look of the blog to a simpler design.

For the work itself, this is will be the beginning of a process of constantly checking if my work follows the grading sheet. Finally I plan to focus on fewer things – but doing them better.  

An Exploration of Structure Redux

Finally I'd like to return to the exploration as a whole. I was aiming to create something that was basic in code, but through small changes could make large visual differences. Along the way I realized that this could be a tool to show how many real world objects are related in shape and pattern. I included variables where appropriate for my design, and not used them were there was no perceivable benefit. In the future, the next step may be to take the original code and add complexity to it, but I think for now this shows how effective a small code base can be.

I still feel that structure is essentially something that depends on our perception. Although I was trying to base my designs on real world objects,  it's likely others well recognize different structures.

Finally,  here are all the structures together.

Leaves

For the last form, I returned to the flower, as that had the most definable structure. This leaf design reduces repetition and rotation to create something that resembles small branches with long leaves.

Fireworks

I wanted to make something that was structured, while introducing noise into my original form. Fireworks seemed to be a good way to express this while staying true to the original structure.

To create the effect, colours were changed to be more appropriate, shapes were elongated as much as possible and the random function was introduced to change position slightly.

Back to Basics

As all my structures were based on fans, I tried to create a flamenco fan. As this is inspired my the basic structure, it was one of the easiest to make.

Transparency has been removed on the fan blades to create this form. Fill changes a bit between shapes to make a more distinct patten.

The Sun

With a few changes to my wagon wheel, I created what looked like the rising sun, with its rays spreading out across the horizon.

As with the wagon wheel rotation is increased. Shapes are elongated as much as possible.

The Invention of the Wheel

Through my experimentation, I came across something that looked like a wagon wheel. Because of the transparency, it appeared as though it was spinning. I also created something that reminded me of a 1950s car tyre.

Added an extra variable in the for statement so that I might have more control of the colour.Elongated the shapes. This one is a bit more abstract.

To create the wagon wheel effect, rotation was increased, as well as repetition in the for statement.

More Fans

Thinking of what else creates a fanned out appearance, I thought of petals and decided to make a flower.

On a technical level, this one differs from the Peacock just in stroke width, colour, and the variable governing length of the shapes has been increased.

Fan-Structure

This was the first EOF design I made. It sets theme. As with all the items in this set it uses the same shapes, in the same order. Rotation is a repeating theme that allows for overlap and new compositions. Multiple overlapped items were created with a ’for’ statement. Variables connect sizes of the shapes.

After experimenting for a while, I decided that I would focus on a fan-like structure, inspired by a peacock tail design on some pillow cases. Each time I change the fan, it would become something else but retaining it's fan shape. So I set to thinking about what objects the fan shapes could relate to.

I started with the peacock tail that had been my inspiration.

I worked on creating a fanned design that reminded me of the peacock tail.

The Code

My initial idea was to start with a fan like structure, and then see how I could make small changes to the code to create new forms. The variable 'mega' set the amount of repetitions that I wanted each form to have.

The advantage of this was that by balancing 'mega' with rotation and the 'obSize' variable, I could change overlap and frequency. This value would create a very different effect when changed.

To take advantage of the format of the canvas (much longer then high) I used transform to move the grid to the middle-bottom and start the fan shape from this point.

The most important part of the code is the ‘for statement’ and the value of rotation. The ‘for’ contains all three ellipses and one rectangle. In the example of code below for a fireworks pattern I have also added random positioning to the Y value of the objects.

I decided to avoid ‘if statements’ for this project for the sake of simplicity.  

 

As a bonus, here is a basic grid patten I created as the suggestion of steven.

Exploration

So it's time for me to think about how structure can be produced by changing a few numbers. Although simplistic, this next example shows how a change in 2 variables can make a very big difference.

And, as a bonus, I also learned a bit about mouse control.

Click on the applet to see the two images.

Processing

Processing is a really impressive little app. It strips everything down to the bare minimum and provides a super easy to use IDE (development environment). And by making it graphic ornamented, all it takes is a few lines of code to make something that looks really quite nice.

But the real hero is variables. Just replace a few values with them, use a loop and suddenly you have something pretty, with hardly any work to boot!

In this example variables are used to connect shapes together, and transparency to gradually change colour. This could be taken far further by linking elements such as colour, position, shape and size with variables.

Beginnings

So what is structure? Firstly, I'm not convinced it would exist without us. Secondly, I imagine it to be a way our brains can cope with reality.

Our world can be broken down. First to parts, then to the elements, then to atoms and so on. So we humans needed away to see. And so we made groups. If things moved together, or were similar colors, or were attached together, they became structure.

To start the 'exploration of structure' I'll need to figure out how to manipulate these groups. The plan is to look into qualities such as position, contrast, size, rotation, size, composition and anything else that a can make a pattern out of. Ultimately, I hope to find one or two elements that I can change to make new unexpected structures.

To start, here is a pattern made with Ben's pattern maker. For me, it's the first use of while loops and transparency.