Design By Numbers

Rating:
Summary: private lessons from the virtuoso of organic digital design
Review: how do you teach a child to play an instrument? how do you instill a sense of rhythm and tone -- expressiveness? maeda's instrument is the computer, and he is a viruoso. in "design by numbers," maeda introduces us to his instrument the same way a piano teacher teaches a student to play -- through a series of exercises and drills designed to both build skill and reveal the awesome power of the medium.

jimi hendrix once said that he and keith emerson played the same instrument -- the speakers. they just used a different "axe." for digital artists, maeda's techniques are as revolutionary as the electric guitar or synthesizer.

parents often feel compelled to teach their children certain skills - to swim, to ride a bike, throw a ball, to play an instrument. with "numbers" maeda adds a new skill that list - true computer literacy for artists who otherwise see the computer as an intimidating means to an end.

Rating:
Summary: private lessons from the virtuoso of organic digital design
Review: how do you teach a child to play an instrument? how do you instill a sense of rhythm and tone -- expressiveness? maeda's instrument is the computer, and he is a viruoso. in "design by numbers," maeda introduces us to his instrument the same way a piano teacher teaches a student to play -- through a series of exercises and drills designed to both build skill and reveal the awesome power of the medium.

jimi hendrix once said that he and keith emerson played the same instrument -- the speakers. they just used a different "axe." for digital artists, maeda's techniques are as revolutionary as the electric guitar or synthesizer.

parents often feel compelled to teach their children certain skills - to swim, to ride a bike, throw a ball, to play an instrument. with "numbers" maeda adds a new skill that list - true computer literacy for artists who otherwise see the computer as an intimidating means to an end.

Rating:
Summary: Great Way to Teach (and Learn)
Review: I am an artist who became a programmer many years ago. While it is a difficult transition, it is not quite as uncommon as I thought. If this book had existed back then, it'd have been much easier and more fun.

I occasionally train people in how to program, I bought Design by Numbers because it starts at the beginning. Instead of going the "Hello, World!" route, it teaches how to use programming to get visual results instead of textural results. This book has been designed for visual people to learn the basics of programming logic, in my mind, that means it will work for just about everybody.

When I'm teaching, I tell my students that the biggest hump is learning the programming logic, not the language. Once you've got the understanding of the logic, each new language you learn becomes easier to pick up. This book does a great job at assuming nothing and explaining everything.

Lastly, it is very attractively designed, so it will appeal to the artist.

Rating:
Summary: You know, it's strange....
Review: I like this book a lot, but the thing I like best has nothing to do with programming --- It's the attention to typographic detail.

Beautiful grey/black combinations, meticulous rags, tiny illustrations and a very interesting grid make this the best looking book with sample code I've ever seen.

It's a book about method, so if it's Maeda's work you want to see, I assume his next book is the one you want.

It is a beautifully made basic primer which articulates the virtues of a new technology for design-- it has a proud place on my shelf next to 'Grid Systems' by Josef Mueller-Brockmann and 'Typography' by Emil Ruder.

Rating:
Summary: Good even if you already know programming
Review: If you're already a programmer, be warned that much of this book covers elementary programming concepts. I nonetheless found the author's explanations of these refreshingly innocent.

Much of the book will also give you insight into computational art. Many nice example programs are given from which variations are easily created, and the author offers some glimpses into his own philosophy.

The computer language used for the programs, dbn, seems designed to impose very pure, minimalist art. It uses a tiny screen space (101x101 pixels), no colours (only 101 shades of grey), has a small set of keywords (there's no "else" construct!) and has no built-in support for graphical primitives beyond points and lines. What's more, it is an interpreted language, and the interpreter is written in Java, which makes it pretty slow when run from a browser. You can however make some very attractive little programs with it, and it has the ease-of-use of a scripting language.

The book is a quick read, having sparse text spread out over 256 pages :P but you really have to type out and try the programs to get the most out of it. Overall it's quite cool.

Rating:
Summary: why i wrote this book
Review: many people have asked me how and why i, or my students at mit, create the things that we create. the answer begins with an in-depth understanding of computer codes, which it turns out is a very difficult skill to acquire today. a decade ago, you turned the computer on and it didn't do anything. you had to teach it how to do something by writing a program. today you turn it on and it does seemingly everything -- and *it* is the teacher now. it appears to know everything, so you never think that you might be able to teach it something. Design By Numbers is an attempt to reestablish control of the computer by walking through the development of small graphical programs in a simple programming environment that is free and runs from any web browser.

Rating:
Summary: inventive and original achievement
Review: Not meant to teach a useful programming language, as the last reviewer seems to have expected, but a critical innovation in the way design is taught. Design by Numbers is meant to teach digital designers the language their tools already speak, but which students rarely learn. There's compromises for both programmers and deisgners here--and that it's slow in your browser is certainly not an important one--but this book offers insights for both camps. It's also quite attractive and contains more information than you'd expect on a quick flip through.

Rating:
Summary: DISAPPOINTING...
Review: The guy describing this book as a tutorial is dead on...
Perhaps this merging of art and technology stuff was revolutionary several years ago, but in 2002 I feel that this book has been quickly out dated. It is way too basic and lengthy, more like a book you glance through than one that you read. For a straight 'artist' with no mathematical abilities, maybe it will be helpful but for a design professional with a brain, it seems almost insulting.
Check it out of the library if you are curious, but save your money...

Rating:
Summary: Design and Programming Tutorial
Review: This is both a book and an interactive tutorial in computer programming for artists and designers. While it is now common for printed books to include CD-ROMs, this one has instead its own website where free software, called DBN (Design By Numbers), can be accessed, downloaded, and used by anyone with a JAVA-enabled browser. Using the book and website in combination, it is the intention of the author (who heads the Aesthetics and Computation group at MIT) that designers, even those who are "mathematically challenged," might quickly acquire "the skills necessary to write computer programs that are themselves visual expressions," and, as a consequence, "come to appreciate the computer's unique role in the future of the arts and design." Unfortunately, the layout of the book is so unexceptional (particularly the dust jacket, which might have been used in a powerful way) that it is unlikely to convert any graphic designers, who create far more complex forms intuitively, with little or no knowledge of programming. As a result, it may only reach those who need it least, meaning those who are already straddling the line between art and mathematics, between graphic design and computer programming. (Copyright by Roy R. Behrens from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 14, No. 4, Summer 1999.)

Rating:
Summary: Design and Programming Tutorial
Review: This is both a book and an interactive tutorial in computer programming for artists and designers. While it is now common for printed books to include CD-ROMs, this one has instead its own website where free software, called DBN (Design By Numbers), can be accessed, downloaded, and used by anyone with a JAVA-enabled browser. Using the book and website in combination, it is the intention of the author (who heads the Aesthetics and Computation group at MIT) that designers, even those who are "mathematically challenged," might quickly acquire "the skills necessary to write computer programs that are themselves visual expressions," and, as a consequence, "come to appreciate the computer's unique role in the future of the arts and design." Unfortunately, the layout of the book is so unexceptional (particularly the dust jacket, which might have been used in a powerful way) that it is unlikely to convert any graphic designers, who create far more complex forms intuitively, with little or no knowledge of programming. As a result, it may only reach those who need it least, meaning those who are already straddling the line between art and mathematics, between graphic design and computer programming. (Copyright by Roy R. Behrens from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 14, No. 4, Summer 1999.)