Python for Visual Designers with Maurice Meilleur

Learn the basics of Python using the free MacOS app DrawBot. Create animated vector art, set type with code, and more!

As designers, we use tools to help complete our work but often don't consider how these tools can box us into certain processes and solutions. Creating our own tools can lead us down new and unexpected avenues in our designs. Some of the best visual ideas come about by setting up some boundaries — a color palette, a typeface or two — and then running wild within the system. Working out a system in code is a great way to explore these ideas: computers love repetition and can quickly make hundreds of variations on a theme, and mistakes in the code can result in something that often looks better than what was originally intended.

No programming experience is necessary for this course, but students should be comfortable doing some arithmetic and basic geometry. Workshop participants will learn the basics of the Python programming language while working in the free DrawBot application for MacOS. A quick sketch made with code in DrawBot can be saved as a .pdf to be finished later in Illustrator. Or, with a little bit more work in the code editor, an entire book, magazine, or animation can be built without even launching Illustrator or InDesign.

Using the fundamentals of the Python programming language, students will sketch to create vector art with code and use the basic principles of design to turn their sketches into PDF documents, animated .gifs, and videos.

Register by September 8 for a 10% Early Bird discount!

You may also like the following events from Letterform Archive:

• This Saturday, 6th September, 09:00 pm, Typography on Screen with Anselm Dästner in San Francisco, California
• This month, 18th September, 06:00 pm, Collections Tour: The Power(s) of Design / Les Pouvoir(s) du Design in San Francisco, California

Also check out other Arts events in Torquay, Workshops in Torquay.