Mixing Design and Programming for Interactive Digital Art
Meet Jono Brandel, explorer of procedural aesthetics
** ART <3 CODE **Projects and stories from the intersection of art, code and everything in-between.`````````````````````Name: Jono Brandel
Role: Graphic designer, computer programmer
Location: New York
Likes: Cycling, running to explore the neighborhoodWebsite | Github | Twitter
Without using your job title, what do you do?
These days I’m reading a lot of books on art and technology and the theories that surround how these two domains interact.
How do you combine music with graphic design and programming?
I’m not a musician, so I come at it from the graphic design perspective. For me, music is another read in the hierarchy of your styles. It can drive a lot of animations or design decision like in Patatap. But it can also recede to the second or third read, like in Typatone. In this way, it’s easier for me to decide how to balance things.
Which project that matters the most to you and why?
One of my projects that has mattered a lot in the last two years is this paper I recently completed. It analyzes the artistic approach of abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky and compares that to how practitioners of art and technology work.
Where do you do your best work?
I have a little desk cornered in the living room of my apartment. This the best I’ve got for the moment.
In my twenties I would spend my nights banging away at the keyboard trying to come up with something inventive. I thought that was when my best work happened but recently I find my best work comes when I least expect it and from my subconscious.
What advice would you give to a beginner interested in your field?
Don’t sell yourself short and don’t necessarily take the first thing that comes to you. Life has very little structure, so it’s good to get into the working world without a clear plan or a set of goals that goes farther than 1 year.
What’s in your toolbox?
All of my projects that require code rely on open source libraries I either maintain or contribute to. I’ve been working on Two.js for 8 years, it’s a two-dimensional drawing API for modern web browsers.
Two.js I use in almost every project (Typatone included). And in fact I made this library in order to create Patatap. I also use Atom Editor, Rhino and Google Docs everyday and am a recent convert to Figma.
What is something you want more of this year?
I have three online courses in my wishlist:
And I have these books on my need-to-finish list:
- Architectural Approach to Level Design by Christopher W. Totten
- Expanded Internet Art by Ceci Moss
- AI Aesthetics by Lev Manovich
- Visualizing Quaternions by Andrew J. Hanson
Along a spectrum of art <-> code, where are you?
I personally don’t see them as a spectrum but if I had to look at it in this way I’d say I run back-and-forth from the two ends. If I could reframe the analogy, I would say code is one lens I use to engage with art.
