Reinventing
Graphic Design
Software

by bridging the gap between
Graphical User Interfaces
and Programming

Nolwenn Maudet

University of Tokyo

DRS, Limerick, June 27th 2018

Introduction

A mismatch between designers and their tools

Design Software transformed graphic design practice

[Levi, 2017]

Photoshop 1, by Adobe

Evolution of the Photoshop tool palette

Origins of design

appropiating means of production

[Gropius, 1926]

Anni Albers, 1937

Design today

embrassing programming

[Reas & McWilliams, 2012], [Donnot, 2011]

Casa de la Música, Sagmeister & Walsh, 2011

Outline

two objectives

Qualifying the mismatch between graphic designers’ practices and current digital graphic design tools

Proposing principles for novel design tools that could mitigate this mismatch

— 1 —

Digital Design Tools
from a lineage perspective

Distinguishing between tools built for research purposes...

Tool for automatic layout creation,
Muriel Cooper & Ron McNeil, 1994

... and tools built by the industry

Page Maker by Aldus, 1985

Technical Lineage

[Simondon, 1958]

Transition from Celt to Paddle, Spear, and Sword,
in The Evolution of Culture And Other Essays, 1906,
by Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt.

Recreating
Paste-Up

Page Based
Layout

— 2 —

A Hylomorphic
vision of design

Hylomorphism

Designers already have in mind the outcome they want to achieve

[Ingold, 2013]

Every human tool relies on, and materialises, some underlying conception
of the activity that it is designed to support

[Suchman, 2007]

The color Picker

given that a designer wants to select a specific colour, help her achieve this goal in the fewest steps possible

Alignment commands

given that a design wants to align these elements, help her achieve this goal in the fewest steps possible

Quest for invisibility

“[graphic design tools] take considerable skill to use, and even in the hands of a pro, take too much time, time that could be used to design and create”

Illustrator 88 commercial, 1988

The instrumental turn of design tools

[Bertelsen et al., 2007]

Ian Hattwick & Joseph Malloch, 2012

— 3 —

Graphical Substrates
to rethink digital design tools

Bridging the gap between textual programming and Graphical User Interfaces

Graphical Substrates

“Interactive graphical objects that embed behaviours and interact with content elements”

[Garcia et al., 2017], [Maudet et al., 2017]

Graphical Substrates

Several examples of graphical substrates

[Ciolfi et al., 2016], [Xia et al., 2016], [Kazi et al., 2014]

Tweaking

Taking into account flexibility and exceptions

[Ciolfi et al., 2016]

Creation from Examples

Reifying Substrates from concrete samples

[Maudet et al., 2017]

Conclusion

Reinventing Digital
Design Tools

An invitation
for tool creators
to step in