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risd thesis blog: james j gradyArchive for processing
blink!
blink, an interactive projection, was featured in the RISD Graphic Design MFA 2011 Biennial at the Sol Koffler Gallery. blink showcases the thirty-eight designers in the RISD Graphic Design MFA program. The large lobby outside the gallery was the home to this piece. In order to interact with this piece a viewer enters the marked area on the floor in front of the projection. A camera on the ceiling senses the movement and the faces on the projection blink. All thirty-eight students’ names marked on the floor correspond to the faces on the projection. Standing over a particular name makes only that individual blink. The more people in the area the more faces blink. If no one stands in the area all the faces on the projection close their eyes. This was a fun interaction and a great conversation piece while enjoying cocktails at the opening. This project was made possible with processing.
The artist statement reads:
Design is an individual and collaborative process. Art comes from individuals, and design comes from collaboration.
Meet all the 2011/12 students at the interactive web version of this project risd.gd/Class/2011/
This piece originally designed as the 2011/12 class poster (see below).
Thanks to Dinah Fried for giving me the inspiration in a dream 
Cheers!
poster
poster detail
Things I did this summer
This summer I worked at Fathom Information Design. Fathom was founded by Ben Fry, 2011 Cooper Hewitt Interaction Design winner and co-creator of Processing. Processing is an open-source programming environment for teaching computational design and sketching interactive-media software. It provides artists and designers with accessible means of working with code while encouraging engineers and computer scientists to think about design concepts. The best way to describe what processing is all about is it’s mission statement:
Processing seeks to ruin the careers of talented designers by tempting them away from their usual tools and into the world of programming and computation. Similarly, the project is designed to turn engineers and computer scientists to less gainful employment as artists and designers.
I love that mission statement. I was successfully working as a graphic designer for over 10 years but decided to leave a profitable job and go back to graduate school to see what else design can offer. In the past I’ve been frustrated with the separation of design and programming. Mainstream software created for designers is also extremely frustrating, due to the separation between layout, photography, video, animation, interactivity, and coding. My experience working at Fathom not only broke down the walls between designer and developer but opened my mind to other ways of tackling design through programming and computation. I hope to continue to be tempted away from my usual tools and ideas as I look to the future of design.
This semester I will continue to work at Fathom one day a week on an independent study, Visualizing Data. I plan to incorporate this work into my thesis. More to come on that.
Most importantly, we had a ton of fun working together. Below is a sample of projects I worked on this summer. Enjoy!
genetics app
Prototype sketch for an iPhone app that covers the human genome and genetic conditions.
population density
A map of world population and density. Each circle denotes the number of people in that area: larger, darker circles show low density areas, and smaller, brighter circles highlight higher densities. The top 20 cities are marked with white outline circles.
chelsea football
Chelsea Football Club team practice and rehabilitation overview.
Last but not least, Rag Time, an interactive typography game. It was really fun working on this project.
The Rag Time game challenges you to fix a bad example of ragged text and make it Swiss-perfect. Rag Time puts you up against the clock to make the best rag you can. Don’t be a Scheisser Rag!
