ColourCellsRainbow from okdeluxe on Vimeo.

Grid Attract / Repulse from okdeluxe on Vimeo.

Coinciding with the launch of fashion label COS’s spring/summer collection 2008, I’ve just completed a new in-store projection. The software is written completely in Processing and is aesthetically linked with the store front window decoration and the vinyl-cut graphics on windows.

See the project description and photos from the London Regent Street store on the main okdeluxe page. Will edit/render/post a video soon.

I am currently playing around with generating textures and then generating shapes based on these textures - results are, well, interesting so far. I’ll keep pushing this blind-folded approach for a bit and make a bigger write up of the process once I get a bit further along. Two screenshots below.

A while ago (I think it was in 2005) I was working on rendering words and short sentences in Processing and made this little piece.

intersections - IDEO from okdeluxe on Vimeo.

The system is really basic: a bunch of circles moving around the screen, when they overlap with each other, they draw a line to the center of the circle they just overlapped with.I’ve been working on a new in-store projection for COS where I’ve evolved this approach a bit - more on this soon.

Often when I base coded graphics on a series of photographies, I manage the change in source-photo (the swapping from one image to another) by making the coded graphics slowly adapt to the changed source. Now, what if I have a project where I can’t depend on the abstracted graphics to do the easing but instead need a soft easing between two images used as a non-rendered source? I need something like the built-in lerpColor() function in Processing but for images! So, I wanted to create a simple class that can handle merging one photo into another but NOT render it to the screen, instead keep it in a PGraphics object to be used as a reference object.

This screenshot shows the sample code in action, to ensure it works the lerped-image is shown onscreen - obviously this is not a real-life situation but useful for debugging.

Download Processing source code here : imageLerpExample.zip

In the 2007 edition of the IDEA awards sponsored by Business Week, IDEO won bronze in the ‘Computer Equipment’ category for the design of the Olivetti MY_WAY photo printer.

The IDEO website has a detailed project description here.

I worked on this project with IDEO and have just recently received my very own IDEA-award certificate.

The last (long) while has been to quiet on the blog - that’s not to say that I haven’t been incredibly busy, its just that sometimes client work can’t be exposed just yet. However, one thing that will be exposed in the coming days is a sweet little project I’ve been involved with, here’s a couple of screenshots from the colour-scheme debugging session. More in the coming days.

Earlier this week I was in Scotland for a bit of teaching. The students of the Interactive Media Design and Innovative Product Design departments at the University of Dundee are doing a really interesting project called ‘Mind The Gap’ - they have been challenged to design a service/product/experience that bridges the gap of generations between themselves and their grandparents. If find this challenge extremely interesting and relevant and are really looking forward to see this project through.

The 40 students in their groups.

Last year, the long awaited Processing book by Casey Reas and Ben Fry was published. As I was part of the original alpha-release testing team (back from version 0043 in summer of 2002) my name found it’s way into the ‘Acknowledgements’ section. Processing has been a great ride so far, I’m proud to be part of it.