All the images featured in the gallery are neither randomly generated, nor designed. They have been selectively bred in an evolutionary interaction between a human aesthetic and an expression of a series of computational rules.
It is a method that is echoes the selective breeding of plant and animal that man has been practicing for millennia. In this environment, pleasing designs are produced in minutes from a simple stream of mouse clicks guided by an untrained human eye. You can experience a simple version of the process with our online demo.
It is straightforward to generate images with simple regularity. It is even easier to generate random images. Visual appeal emerges from images that display a special balance of order and chaos. Artificial selection is an excellent model for achieving this.
Starting from a set of simple, random images this set adapts under the eye of the user to increasing complexity. New designs are produced by randomly varying and combining features of existing ones. Offspring are produced from a mating pool of designs retained for particular visual properties. Complex features are duplicated and adapted.
The infinite space of possible designs contains a continuous scale of both complexity and regularity. From simple, light motifs to bold, noisy artworks - the breeder can flow toward the ideal specimen.
The requirement to come up with an original image is perhaps one of the most taxing for a graphical artist, particularly under the pressures of time. The act of expressing a preference for one over another is far easier and more enjoyable. The creative act becomes an interplay between the aesthetic sense of the designer and the tuned structures resulting from evolutionary dynamics.
At its simplest, the process for producing designs is incredibly intuitive: the user clicks on an design that appears to be more interesting that its peers. Excellent results often occur from a whimsical exploration and the interaction has been reported as addictive.
For more seasoned users, there is the opportunity to tweak parameters to balance the variety of offspring. Programmatically, the expression of the forms can easily be extended or constrained to more closely fit a specific style. The method can be adapted to incorporate typography or prior images.
