12
Dear Jonathan,
with great joy I played around with the Scriptographer version of the cutting tool, the tool works quite addictive. I think the tool is well balanced between ‘create’ and ‘generate’, the original starting point of this process. While working with the tool it appeared to me that it was the first time, since the first time using software like illustrator, that I was actually in the process of mastering a new tool. This automatically generated some new insights about the importance of the tool palette and how familiar you are with using them to exactly make what you want to make. This new tool asks for a new skill, not only in usage, but also in acceptance of the possibilities. I find myself between two new points which I for now can best describe as ‘the difference between illustrate and decorate’. I attached some first sketches to show how it could work within the Baltan identity.
Best, Eric
The Scriptographer version of our cutting tool. (View fullscreen)
10
Dear Eric,
Hold down command when clicking, to cycle through the available colors.
greetings, Jonathan
10
Dear Jonathan,
maybe there is a key here. If we would aim for building a tool that has certain limitations, the development of specific skills for using the tool and building a ‘memory’ would be emphasized. I am starting to understand the impact of the prehistoric cutting tool more and more and maybe it is the ultimate tool? It is multifunctional, it can be used instantly, you can grow your skills by using it more often. In a way it is also nice to translate this rough, straightforwardness into a digital format. So, if we accept the limitations we can indeed focus on decisions that need to be made in order to make it fully functional. One of the things that could be interesting is the use of colour, how (or can) we use colour in order to have a more diverse output, but again based on limitations.
Best, Eric
9
Dear Eric,
Don’t we already create memory by wielding the tool? Each outcome created using the tool shifts its potential and therefore also becomes part of its memory (or history). This can only happen when the tool provides us with a logical framework to work within. And only when the outcome can be considered to be a layered series of decisions with no untraceable influences.
While writing this, I start to understand the failure of the keyboard sketch. It visualizes input, but there is no collaboration there. All decisions were taken by the engineer and none are left for the designer. You can try to design with it, but the feeling is jarring and unnatural.
Perhaps we could emphasize the decisions by limiting them. Each version being the addition of n decisions.
greetings, Jonathan
8
Dear Jonathan,
It is not so much the need for mistakes, it is more the investigation of the need for traces and textures that physical tools leave behind by either; how the user applies the tool or by specific characteristics of the tool itself, which maybe got lost when the tools were converted to the digital toolbox. I don’t want to be nostalgic about this because this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It certainly triggered new developments. For the last 10/15 years there seems to be an urge for ‘unpredictable’ aspects that are being build into designs, alongside this development you see a lot of projects that are based on building tools that develop a unique analog output. Both developments are interesting, one is about designing the parameters and leaving the ‘final’ output to a computer, the other one is about using the same technology but making the final output more ‘human’. I would like to see the tool as a designer that works along and gives suggestions, the ultimate studiopartner, a tool for a fool, a tool that can be fooled, a tool to talk to… if I say Hey, the tool says Ho, Hi and Bla. If I draw a form, the tool suggests a pattern or a border, If I am setting type, the tool suggests a lay-out. A tool that learns, a tool with a memory? When we talk about input, this is maybe a fair way to go, a tool that learns. (in relation to post #5, ‘muscle memory and all that’)
Best, Eric
7
Dear Eric,
Before going further into this direction, I would like to question the need for mistakes. Do you feel that you have too much control over your toolset? Why the need to be put off balance? Perhaps it is evidence of a missing input?
greetings, Jonathan
6
Dear Jonathan,
by drawing while typing we probably minimize the chance on making ‘mistakes’,
the hand as a drawing machine is more vulnerable, especially, for instance, when you are on a train, actually the train becomes part of your drawing. By reacting on the movement of the train, your brain tries to work as a contra tool for compensating this movement (always too late). I think the same thing sort of happens when you are used to draw with your right hand and are forced to use your left hand. The brain has to adjust to this new tool. Can we think of a compensation/contra tool?
Best, Eric
5
Dear Eric,
When we use keyboards to write, we draw virtual lines by moving our fingers between the physical locations of the keys. What was the last time you actually thought about the location of a key? Perhaps our brains are drawing, while the letters flow from the tapping of our fingers? Muscle memory and all that.
Click on the rectangle to give it text input. Then try out writing different words and names and see what kind of symbols they produce.
greetings, Jonathan
4
Dear Jonathan,
that is very true, I think Stan Lee (or Voltaire) made a good point. In a way it relates to the Mr. Marshall McLuhan’s ‘We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us’ quote. Not really sure how to translate McLuhan into a tool, but it made me wonder about the mouse tool, which is actually a weird drawing tool. If you draw by hand, you always see the drawing tool and the line it produces as one, by using the mouse our hand got separated from the actual line that is drawn on the screen. The touch screen largely solves that problem, but it made me wonder what happens if we totally forget about computer drawing as the translation of only a mouse movement and use keyboard functions to draw or determine certain aspects of drawing?
Best, Eric
