Prof. Celestino Soddu with Prof. Enrica Colabella
School of Design, Politecnico di Milano University, A.Y. 2013-2014
For starting my generative process, I’ve cho- sen, first of all, three attributes, three words that could represent me and my design vi- sion. These three words are the starting point for the choice of my references and, from them, for my set of transforming rules.
My three attributes are:
Before setting the rules, I had to clarify to myself what these words mean, so I would be able to transfer their characters into my process.
Organic: to me is something not fixed, so- mething that grows around an invisible cen- ter, something which is a fluid mix of ele- ments like cells or DNA; organic is also divine proportion.
Not-subsequential: things or a series, in my mind, to be not-subsequential have to answer to complex rules that follow not the classical scheme of cause and effect; they have to be numbers linked each other in strange or more profound ways.
Schematic: Something schematic is so- mething linked, something arranged in re- gular and clear ways, something that can be explained with simple shapes; it’s also a grid, and the rules that are needed to build up a project.
After that, I set my rules connected to the words and to the design events (how it finish, what is the color, how to arrange it, ecc). They took the moves directly from my refe- rences: for example, organic is something that grows as the sunflower, so once set the center of my composition, I can arrange the elements rounding them with the golden an- gle, 137,5°; or, for not-subsequential, I can create distance between objects counting with Fibonacci numbers, so set the space of
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, ecc.
The generative process needs, to start, a ca-
talyst, something which will be used to give a
personal interpretation, that leads to the pa- radigm. The catalyst for the 1st project was a song, “Lateralus”, performed by the american band Tool. Listening to it, to its feelings and its complex structure, I drew my interpretation. Polishing it, I arrived at my final paradigm, a linked structure between events that was the starting point for the project. The events in the paradigm are connected to the events of the theme of the project: in this case, a po- ster about generative design. So, the para- digm told me the relationships between titles, images, colors, fonts, ecc in the poster. Than, using my set of rules, I began to transform each element, increasing the complexity and, more important, making it more organic, not- subsequential and schematic.
I also ended up with a motto, a national sen- tence which has an instinctive connection with my process: “Il riso abbonda sulla bocca degli stolti”.
My generative experience had increased with the second project: I had the same set of ru- les, so the same references, but a different catalyst (so a different paradigm) and a diffe- rent theme (a child book cover). My catalyst in this case was a picture: the strenght of na- ture is clear in the photo, where a small sub swims next to a giant whale shark. Interpre- ting the catalyst, I ended up with the new pa- radigm, which linked the book cover events (title, author, frames, ecc).
From this paradigm, I designed two different scenarios of the book cover: in both of the two processes, I applied the same references at the events, but I used different rules. So, for example, in the first scenario I created the structure grid transforming it with Fibonacci, and in the second with the 7/8 rule from math rock: both were not-subsequential, so the at- tribute is the same, but the visual result is clearly different.