I built an algorithm with Processing that draws random faces. A new crowd gets generated at every click. I personally enjoy looking at them and imagining the stories happening between people.
Try the online version: https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/422926
See the code: https://github.com/bowenbowen/random-crowd-generator
Individual project
1 week, 2017
Processing
1. Generate different facial features separately in random styles. There's a class for every facial feature. Some features are shown or not shown depending on the chances I set.
2. Combine the features.
1. Use a nested for loop to place faces into rows and columns.
2. Add some random position transformation to each face to make the composition look more organic.
3. Add some emotional elements (speech bubbles and hearts) to spice up the scene.
I just started the second year of my undergrad study in Communication Design when I worked on this project. It was the first major project I did for my first coding course called Creative Coding. I spent a lot more time on this project compared to my classmates, because I really enjoyed it.
And the result turned out great. It amazed my teacher and classmates. I'm still proud of it even now. The experience gave me courage to explore a new playful and nerdy way of creating art: using code.
Since then, I gradually took on more classes on the digital side of design—web design, web development, UX design, physical computing...
Till where I am today: an interaction designer.
