An experiment in exploring lines and colors. This one is special in that I wanted to play with the different ways how an artwork could manifest in its various forms. From Python code in drawbot. To rendering into bitmap and vector. To animation in After Effects. To 3D spatial structural form in Cinema4D. Each has its own interpretation and emotions to them.
Until next time!
— Ballio
Below are some recent graphics I’ve been playing with in recent months. Most of the work are still generated in Python with Drawbot. Some new techniques I’ve been experimenting with is generating SVG or PDF vector outputs with code, while importing those vectors into After Effects to further convert them to shape layers. I find it much more controllable and the possibilities are even more endless. Although now we’re dealing with time-based animations only, there’s less computation and code-based things we can do with AE. Although, there might be something I can do with the data and After Effects expressions in Javascript.
Also, I know Cinema 4D uses Python, so I’ve been starting to play with that in C4D as well to make some time-based animations — like this one experiment I did for WordPress.com:
Playing with a few rotated lines to create a circle. Mostly color studies here.
Something cool I discover is that the moire pattern in these graphics create a nice vibration when you scroll the page. This reminds me of the genius SONOS rebrand by Bruce Mau Design that uses computation pattern to visualize sound.
Inspired by Bridget Riley’s works. I started experimenting with squares that are slightly rotated and tiled, which creating some weird optical illusion when moved.
Made this piece as a cover for our 2018 family holiday card.
The idea here is making a piece of art with our last name 陳 (Chan) written out 2018 times.
Back at it for more circles drawbot fun. Playing with just using a circular shape and looping it many times with different rotations.
Sort of a meta design. Using the unique shapes of Caslon, trying out some animation techniques of text fitting into paths made with type in drawbot.
It was pretty cool that Ace Hotel retweeted it!
This time, I was inspired by Josef Albers’s “Interaction of Color”
For this exercise, I was experimenting with using random()for various fills and the type. I was also trying to see how animation, timing, and frame rate works in drawbot. Lots to explore and play with.
This reminds me of one of my favorite books we read to our children, Albers’s Squares and Other Shapes, before working on this design with Juno. Highly recommended.
Here’s the code if you all want to play with it:
NFRAMES = 50
for frame in range(NFRAMES):
newPage(1000,1000)
frameDuration(1/7)
# set a blend mode
blendMode("hardLight")
# draw a rectangle
fill(random(), random(), random(), 1)
# x y w h
rect(100, 100, 400, 400)
fill(random(), random(), random(), 1)
rect(500, 100, 400, 400)
fill(random(), random(), random(), 1)
rect(500, 500, 400, 400)
fill(random(), random(), random(), 1)
rect(100, 500, 400, 400)
fill(random(), random(), random(), 1)
rect(300, 300, 400, 400)
# set a font and font size
font("Futura", 200)
# set a blend mode
blendMode("overlay")
# draw text
fill(random(), random(), random(), 1)
text("Juno", (140, 630))
fill(random(), random(), random(), 1)
text("Ballio", (130, 230))
saveImage(u"~/Desktop/drawBotTest.gif")