Graphic Design & Digital Media
Assignment #1 — A Beautiful Sketch

Assignment Description:  Use the Processing language to create a design which uses some of the primitive shapes you’ve learned about.  Think of yourself as a creative designer when choosing the topic of your design.  

Guidelines:

  • Set the size to at least 500 pixels by 500 pixels. The dimensions can vary depending upon your design, but make sure that it is not too small or too large.
  • Incorporate as many shapes as you can properly fit into your design. Examples are: ellipse(), line(), point(), quad(), rect(), beginShape/endShape, arc(), and triangle().
  • Make liberal use of formatting commands such as: background(), noStroke(), noFfill().
  • In executing your design, make sure that you have used many of Processing’s built-in functions, as already called for above. It will not suffice to use a minimalist approach for this assignment.
  • Make sure that every Processing assignment has the following four lines of info at the top:
    Assignment#, Your name, and Date
  • Here are some, ideas. However, be sure to include more than one item in your design.  For instance, if you draw a cougar, you should at least include a backdrop of a few blades of grass or something.
    • A self-portrait
    • An avatar or a cartoon depiction of someone
    • An alien, robot, monster, animal, caricatures, etc.
    • Your favorite cartoon TV Show character or design your own
    • A city skyline
    • A post card design
    • A fabric pattern
    • Stylize your name's initials...or a logo
    • The CofC cougar
    • A Poster displaying conceptual art.
    • Imitation of existing design or art (examples of artists: Ndebele, Kasimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Giorgio Morandi)
    • Etcetera. Be creative. You are not limited to these ideas.
  • Use the save() function  to generate a JPG or PNG image of your finished sketch.
  • If you have prior programming experience, feel free to use variables, loops, etc. where desired. However, let's hold off on animation, and embrace the constraint of a static drawing for this first assignment.

What to Submit:

You will upload a zipped file containing the following to OAKS dropbox entitled “Assignment 1”.

  1. A write-up describing your sketch, its inspiration, and how you designed and implemented it. You may also include a brief discussion about your experience working on this assignment. One or two paragraphs will suffice.
  2. The sketch folder. Notice that the sketch folder will include the .PDE file and the image generated with the save() function.

(I repeat… be sure that you have zipped the files up before uploading).