About Generative Design

What is Generative Design?

In Generative Design we build the tools that fill the gap between contemporary design tools and the potential of the digital possibilities. Currently we use methods which we inherited from analog tools. Photoshop depicts a darkroom, Illustrator offers a drawing board. In Generative Design we get rid of all material world heritage and replace it with algorithms and logic.

We use the immense power of computers to repeat operations unnoticeable quick. We combine it with our creative ability to predict beautiful imagery in order to create a broad variety of designs, that we could not have done with computational support.

We can use generative design to create unlimited suggestions of designs from which we can choose or we can even completely leave the design working on its own. Generative design is the radical parameterization of a work with values, which are chosen not ultimately chosen by us but also by the generative system.

Imagine you would build a design in a graphic design software like Adobe Illustrator, but instead of using fixed values for everything from positions over colors to layouts, you use parameters that are determined by randomness or data like the weather or your heart rate. Every time you would save a new new copy of your design it would look different. The concept behind your work would still be the same, but you have now more than one fixed manifestation.

A New Frontier for Digital Design

Computation is only the technical core of generative design. We help digital design to reach the height of its existence. Generative design is not about programming. It is about aesthetics that are only possible through programming.

Most of the tools we use in Photoshop and Illustrator, to pick an example, are inherited from pre-digital practices like developing film in darkrooms or drawing and cutting with paper. By sticking only to these tools digitally we miss a great opportunity in the form of aesthetics that are only able to emerge from digital-only practices.