Generators
I just discovered the Generator Blog, and, after that, the Uzeful list of online generators.
Generators are small applications (usually web-apps) that automatically produce semi-random artifacts of various kinds, using more or less sophisticated heuristics and/or pattern combinators. Well known examples of generators are the random scientific paper generator, and Chris Coyne's tool for drawing pictures using context-free grammars [see my previous post on GFDG].
What impresses me, however, is the effectiveness of very simple generators. As an example, GFDG has a generator of random underground maps (inspired to the graphical style of the London Tube map), and the resulting images look very plausible; the company logo generator produces very simple logos composed only by two or three ribbons and/or points, which however looks very meaningful, and evokes human-like shapes and somewhat inspiring symmetrical symbols. I guess our very biased cognition system plays a fundamental role (and does a big part of the job) in the process of interpretation of these pictures. As usual, I'm interested in using these tools as an aid for (graphical) design practices.
Not a new idea, but still amusing: the random poem generator.
Generators are small applications (usually web-apps) that automatically produce semi-random artifacts of various kinds, using more or less sophisticated heuristics and/or pattern combinators. Well known examples of generators are the random scientific paper generator, and Chris Coyne's tool for drawing pictures using context-free grammars [see my previous post on GFDG].
What impresses me, however, is the effectiveness of very simple generators. As an example, GFDG has a generator of random underground maps (inspired to the graphical style of the London Tube map), and the resulting images look very plausible; the company logo generator produces very simple logos composed only by two or three ribbons and/or points, which however looks very meaningful, and evokes human-like shapes and somewhat inspiring symmetrical symbols. I guess our very biased cognition system plays a fundamental role (and does a big part of the job) in the process of interpretation of these pictures. As usual, I'm interested in using these tools as an aid for (graphical) design practices.
Not a new idea, but still amusing: the random poem generator.
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2 Comments:
http://www.customsigngenerator.com/links.htm has a bunch of links to image generators.
Just FTYi -- the "IsPoem" is only a poem generator in the loosest sense of the word. While, per the author [admittedly me] it's one big poem generated by the addition of smaller pieces, it does not in fact jumble words to randomly create a new poem. The poem is different based on how you read it, yes--the poem you view when you initially navigate to the site is random but from there you click wherever. It's a sort of user-driven generator, but not a random generator of any flavor. I have yet to stir the motivation to try to build something to analyze and mimic word usage to the purpose of creating random poems. Perhaps, one day, I'll build one based on the poem's word/poem base, who knows?
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