Session 2 Direct link to this section

Before the course Direct link to this section

Please bring:

  • your laptop
  • your poster from Session 1, printed on A3 paper

Tasks in class Direct link to this section

Poster Talk Direct link to this section

  • quickly present your poster:
    • which texts did you use?
    • what did you talk about with your partners?
    • how was working with another’s code?
    • what worked well?
    • what were the challenges?

Automating setting type Direct link to this section

For now we need to call every single function one by one (i.e. x(100, 100) to draw an x). This is two things: a) not really practical to set longer texts and b) a lot of manual work to adjust placement, spaces, etc.

We will thus go on to write our own little typesetting scripts. To do this we will look at a few different concepts:

  1. Iteration

    Samples

  2. Classes

    Samples

  3. (Global) variables

    Samples

A few considerations before you start:

  • what is difficult to achieve in existing typesetting software?
  • what would you like use regularly?
  • is the textbox a good idea? Could other metrics (word or charcter count, visual harmony) be interesting?
  • what about line length?
  • what do you have to consider? words, spaces, line breaks, etc.?
  • what happens if a letter is missing?

Sample file including typeable input

Write your own simple typesetting engine for your typefaces. You can use the aove sample as a starting point.

Reading files Direct link to this section

It can sometimes be a good idea to split up our workflow into multiple different smaller files: pulling content from one file, doing the layout in another. Like this you can keep modifying your files and plug everything together at the last moment.

In class, we will only take a look at .csv and .txt files. We will make use of iteration to to iterate over the texts to use them as our typesetting material.

Samples

Modify your typesetting engine from earlier so that it can handle input from a file. you could modify the variable for the text input, so that it takes a .csv-file as input.

Exhibition preparation Direct link to this section

Today is our first exhibition — yay! A few tasks have to be done before we open the doors:

  • Frames:
    • cleaning and emptying the frames
    • preparing compositions with your posters within the frames
  • CoLAB:
    • setting up lights
    • hanging frames and posters
    • setup iMac to show code
    • prepare the bar

Homework Direct link to this section

  • refine your own typesetting engine
  • prepare a collection about you, your home, your favourite plants, whatever you prefer. Please follow this sample.
  • Send it to someone from the course. Two excahnge partners will be provided.
  • Use this csv-file as input for a poster about your corresponding others.
    • Format: A1 (2245px X 3178px)
    • The two posters are the same, only change the data by plugging in the corresponding .csv-files.
    • Bonus:
      • use the saveImage() commandand export your file
      • use a vector software (i.e. Inkscape) to make an outline version of the poster