With Oswin Tickler – Designer & Educator
The workshop involved –
- Understanding how creative code works in relation to print
- Creating visual assets to be used in an existing piece of code to generate collaborative designs using HP Spark Software.
- An activity to understand coding logic by generating visual results based on the received codes
- Using the coding language p5.js. to generate basic variable designs
Collaborative Design Process
- Design shapes on 100×100 artboards on Illustrator
- Ensure all of the shapes are of the same colour and make it spot color with a specific name (as whatever you have mentioned in the code)
- Convert all artwork into outlines and export as PDF
- Plug in a dynamic image channel into Indesign using HP Spark
- Connect the code to the channel using Dynamic personalization settings (connect it to the compiled pdf file)
- Replace the number of pages in the code based on the total pages of the PDF
I believe creative coding is an efficient means of generating randomised versions of a set of designed assets, featuring varying colours and locations, and therefore, it can be employed to create multiple compositions rapidly. A great example is Oswin’s earlier explorations for the work titled “Glitch”.
For this work, the assets were created in Illustrator and exported as white PNG files. The colors were then modified using the code itself. Once the code is functioning properly, you can generate numerous colors and various combinations using the same set of designed assets.
This approach also enhances personalisation; Oswin’s work for the BAFTA Awards involved using coding to generate 2,500 unique covers created from fixed assets and produced at random.
Finally, the workshop ended with writing a basic code and playing with it to generate shapes with varying colours and positions using p5.js. While this is a free online coding platform (limited storage), Processing is a better option as it’s a software where more assets can be used. This is what I ended up creating. It was lovely to revive memories of coding from the 10th grade(JavaScript). I had never thought that it could be used in the creative field, and this workshop has opened my eyes to re-evaluating how any of the skills that I have gained till now can be used in my projects.
Links:
SuperMundane
Fedrigoni
Eye magazine
Fedrigoni 365 (366)
Credits: Oswin Tickler (2025) Creative Coding[Workshop]. UAL London College of Communication. 19 February.