Team up with technology

Before we turn to the application, however, I would like to mention one special feature in generative design: the approach to collaboration. In my experience, the generative program is not just a tool but a creative partner – and should be treated exactly as such. Let me give you an example: generative design enables us to automate the visual execution – the final step of the design process. Thus, designers no longer have to create every single design themselves, but can use the program to generate a variety of results and then choose from the emerging options. This is where a strength of the program – iteration, i.e. the repetition of a process – and a human strength – intuition, in this case the feeling for aesthetics – meet. This special form of collaboration not only saves resources and increases the number of results. It also increases their quality. A clear win-win that simply requires the right attitude and mindset.

1. Brand Experience

Generative design systems can be developed to engage with a specific aspect or feature of a brand (or product).

One example is the Munken Creator, a generative design system that allows designers to experiment with the font Munken Sans. Accessible to everyone as a simple browser application, the tool invites playful engagement with the typeface as a central brand element of Munken. It brings the traditional product back into the design discourse in an unusual way and at the same time creates associative anchors for its users through direct experience and playful engagement with the brand.

2. Adaptive Brand Identity

Generative design systems can be developed to adapt a dynamic brand identity to different output formats and individualise it for different occasions without the use of complicated guidelines and costly specialists.

Once the elements of a brand identity are defined, it is possible to integrate them into a generative design system. The generative program contains the specifications for their use as well as the specifics of possible output formats such as poster, video or animation, so that even non-professionals can generate aesthetically and technically flawless results. One example is my cooperation with the Philharmonie Luxembourg. Here, music is not only a central element of the institution, but has also became the core of its brand identity through the support of a generative system, in that the Philharmonie’s logo responds to sound. When a melody is played into the system, it translates the sounds into design decisions through which the sound becomes visible in the logo. This way, a logo can be created for each new event – without any additional effort – and is literally shaped by the visitors’ upcoming experience.

3. Data Design

Generative systems can be developed to visually link the design of a product with its history or future. The basis of this connection is data that reflects features or even the creation process of the product.

In a generative design system, data is linked to specific decisions, which then form the visual identity of a product. This approach makes it possible to communicate a product’s unique characteristics to the outside world and also allows its identity to change dynamically with them, if desired.

The cooperation with Brute is an example from my portfolio where this interplay has been particularly successful. As a winery based in the north of Germany, Brut plays with the expectations of its customers. Only very few people can imagine that good wine can be produced in a cold, rather rainy region. Brute therefore transforms the special weather conditions underlying its creation into the brand’s USP and anchors them in its visual identity through generative design: driven by the data of wind, rain and sun, the design of each wine vintage thus emerges from the very weather conditions that have shaped its taste character.

4. Visual Storytelling

Generative design systems can be developed to tell a brand story visually through the integration of data.

Influenced by the specific events that underlie its data sets, generative design allows the emergence of an unique visual branding approach that adds new depth and complexity to storytelling. This approach is evident in a system I developed for Lexus. To celebrate a successful partnership with the eSports team 100 Thieves, we transformed specific achievements on their way to winning the League of Legends World Championship title into the design of an art car that now tells the story of their victory. It literally it is a success story told on the surface of a car.