Condtional
Design

How does conditional design work?

A selection of images from the conditional design workshop

Conditional Design Workshop

15/10/14

The conditional design workshop asked us to follow instructions in groups, the outcomes are the linear colored shapes below. The second part led us to create our own rules and design using them. The idea of following conditions to create an outcome may seem very limited, but it means you are challenged to think more about the decisions you are making and it's a very interactive way of designing especially when with a team.

The participants are given a structure to work within, for instance; only use red player 3, only draw lines to the left player 1, you can only go 45 degrees either way from your starting point. These rules are followed and the artists/players collaborate together to create the final outcome.

Conditional Design
A manifesto for artists and designers.

Through the influence of the media and technology on our world, our lives are increasingly characterized by speed and constant change. We live in a dynamic, data-driven society that is continually sparking new forms of human interaction and social contexts. Instead of romanticizing the past, we want to adapt our way of working to coincide with these developments, and we want our work to reflect the here and now. We want to embrace the complexity of this landscape, deliver insight into it and show both its beauty and its shortcomings.

Our work focuses on processes rather than products: things that adapt to their environment, emphasize change and show difference.
Instead of operating under the terms of Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Media Art or Sound Design, we want to introduce Conditional Design as a term that refers to our approach rather than our chosen media. We conduct our activities using the methods of philosophers, engineers, inventors and mystics.

-This can be viewed in it's original location here- http://conditionaldesign.org/manifesto/

Example of work from the Conditional Design Collective:

The conditional design workshop is a really innovative and interesting design collective. With a lot of new designers moving straight onto online platform there is a sense of loss in the physical interactive with pen and paper. These games have created some creative and visually interesting work. Even if they have started from a set of rules, their outcomes are a lot more than the limitations they began with.

After the workshop:

These images show my experimentation with designing with conditions after the workshop. Although some of them weren't very successful, I really enjoyed exploring the variety of ideas and planning out the rules and processes of how the games work.

1- Find a seat. Draw a grid, aim to sit alone in the rows of seats. Start with 20 points. Loose points for connecting with other colours. Stay on the same points if you connect with yourself.

2- 2 Players try and reach the black circle first. They can block each other, but loose a turn if they do. This would work better on bigger sheets or paper.

3- This game didn't really work. The aim was for the purple line to connect the two coloured squares but it was restricted to certain directions.

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