LO 1 – My Inspiration

Kyuha Shim: Designer in Residence

---

Kyuha Shim is a professor at Carnegie Mellon School of Design, teaching the Communications track. He is an active member of the graphic design community, incorporating computer algorithms to explore how computation and designers can work together. He states that “code is just a medium. Whether using it in a creative manner or efficiency-focused manner is up to a designer. ”In this project, Kyuha is using data and code to recreate images with Facebook emojis. 

I admire this project because the use of computational tools was not required. Kyuha could have just iterated a few compositions instead of writing code that generates “thousands of compositions in seconds.” I admire him as a designer. He doesn’t limit himself to just the conventional tools of design but also codes. 

Kyuha was the only designer involved in completing this project. Unfortunately, I do not know how long the project took but I believe that this project required him to use “off-the-shelf” software to streamline the process. Kyuha might have been inspired by data visualization because this project embodies that method at its core. This project (for me) was a realization that coding can really enhance the design process, and work harmoniously as a toolset.

View video here