2007
 
27
Jul

Diploma - Posters and Indesign Scripting

tagged as: digital and diploma, generative, HFG Schwäbisch Gmünd, indesign, my projects at university, poster, processing, typography,

Cooperation between Julia Laub and Benedikt Groß.

During the workout process of our diploma book, we did quite a lot of experiments with generative elements. Because at the end we just could use a limited number of these elements, we decided to design some posters to document these “effects”.

pict0016.jpg
(90,5cm x 128,0cm). Script effect overview poster

All posters are technically done with the Indesign Scripting Interface and a with little help of Processing (recursive area tiling, see end of post). For each “effect” like for instance “connecting all words in one line with all words from the next line”, we programmed always a single script. After we did the book we realised that we got a nice collection of scripts, where you can easily see the spectrum of our experiments. During the diploma-exhibition at the HFG Schwäbisch Gmünd quite a lot of people asked us about these scripts. So we decided to tide up everything and to release this collection in public. Feel free to use and modify these scripts however you wish. Any feedback about modified scripts or projects is very welcome!

Voilá, here it is: MrGenerativeSystemeScriptPack_1.0.zip


Mini demo video

Get the Flash Player to see this player.


Install notes

  • Download and unzip MrGenerativeSystemeScriptPack_1.0.zip
  • Copy the “MrGenerativeSystemeScriptPack_1.0″ folder to:
    CS3 -> \Adobe InDesign CS3\Scripts\Scripts Panel
    CS2 -> \Adobe InDesign CS2\Presets\Scripts
  • Done. Probably the scripts will work only in CS2/CS3.

How to use it

  • Open the “Scripts” Window in Indesign (View -> Automation -> Scripts, or press Alt+Ctrl+F11 this hotkey works only in CS3)
  • Select one or multiple textframes
  • Run a script by double clicking eg. “MrConnectWord.jsx”
  • Some scripts like “MrTweenCharacterPointsize.jsx” accept also selected text

For more informations on Indesign Scripting check hilfdirselbst.ch, adobe forums or the official adobe scripting page. Last but not least, a special “merci” to the hilfdirselbst.ch forum, for answering all our questions so nice!

pict0027.jpg
(90,5cm x 128,0cm). Recursive area tiling algorithmen, various scripts applied on ~300 tiles

pict0035.jpg
(90,5cm x 128,0cm). “MrTweenCharacterPointsize.jsx” and “MrTextlineRest.jsx” in action

pict0018.jpg
(90,5cm x 128,0cm). Recursive area tiling algorithmen, various scripts applied on ~300 tiles

Because Indesign Scripting is sometimes super slow (especially if you try to create a lot of new elements), we decided to use instead Processing for our algorithmen. In Processing everything was way faster, after creating the “tiles” there, we imported it via pdf to Indesign. An online applet of our “recursion tiling algorithmen” can be found here.

recursive_area_tiling_web.jpg
Recursive area tiling algorithmen in Processing

(382 words)

24 Comments


  1. Trackback by serial consign — 2007 Jul 30 @ 9:31 pm

    generative typography and layout…

  2. Comment by johanna — 2007 Aug 3 @ 3:00 pm

    hey beni,
    haben uns auf der diplomausstellung lang unterhalten und ich war wirklich beeindruckt von eurem projekt.
    bin jetzt grade hier und lade mir eure skripts runter.
    das wird was geben in nächster zeit!
    lets rock the graphic community!

    ;)
    johanna

  3. Pingback by Creative Fix — July 2007 | graphic design, art, typography and architecture — 2007 Aug 5 @ 5:10 pm

    […] is using scripts to automate type and grid design. Some of the results are great. The InDesign scripts that can be downloaded from Benedikt’s site. If you use these scripts to generate your own designs, please let me […]

  4. Comment by m9dfukc — 2007 Aug 8 @ 9:32 pm

    really enjoy your work.

  5. Comment by mk — 2007 Aug 16 @ 2:43 pm

    Great!

  6. Comment by Simon — 2007 Sep 4 @ 10:22 pm

    Yeahhh/Geilll!
    :-)
    see you soon in Basel

  7. Comment by Matthias — 2007 Sep 16 @ 7:13 pm

    Das sieht sehr cool aus. Werde mir eure scripts anschauen, sehr interessant…
    Bist wieder mal in der Schweiz?
    Lieber Grus
    matthias aus basel

  8. Comment by Yaro — 2007 Oct 1 @ 3:44 pm

    hello I would like you help me if you don’t mind. I try to use Scripts by Install MrGenerativeSystemeScriptPack_1.0.zip. So I download it and I Copy the “MrGenerativeSystemeScriptPack_1.0″ folder to:
    CS3 -> Adobe InDesign CS3Scripts Scripts Panel and I try to run it by using Window in Indesign (View -> Automation -> Scripts, or by Alt+Ctrl+F11 this hotkey works but without any respond or from
    CS2 -> Adobe InDesign CS2PresetsScripts
    I
    * Select one or multiple textframes and then I try to:
    * Run a script by double clicking on “MrConnectWord.jsx” but its open a new program whats the problem can help me please my mail is yaarobb@yahoo.com if you don’t mind. I will be thanks full for you.

  9. Comment by Yaro — 2007 Oct 1 @ 3:46 pm

    bay the way I couldn’t find the (View -> Automation -> Scripts)

  10. Comment by evan — 2007 Oct 2 @ 6:06 am

    window>automation>presets>scripts

  11. Comment by evan — 2007 Oct 2 @ 6:09 am

    also, not fully understanding the recursive tiling alogrythim. How do i go about creating the tiles via online aplet. how do you go from the source code to a tiled layout?

  12. Comment by benedikt — 2007 Oct 2 @ 9:22 am

    hello evan,
    the online applet is just an “online demo”, but if you run the source code directly in processing it’s very easy to export there vectors with a little help of the pdf export command …

  13. Comment by Craig — 2007 Oct 2 @ 8:19 pm

    Great work! I am interested in similiar scripting for my Senior Project on censorship. Do you know if this scripting could be applied to online content? Let me know as I am trying to figure out if this is even conceivable. Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.

  14. Comment by Marek — 2007 Oct 4 @ 1:33 am

    Hi
    Great Project!
    You said that you imported a PDF to InDesign (which was exported by processing). Obviously a PDF contains all the vertex data, though when I import an PDF to InDesign I just get one big picture and not several tiles (or vertexes). So do I miss a special importer or did you convert it with some other program along the way?
    Cheers
    Marek

  15. Comment by benedikt — 2007 Oct 13 @ 7:12 pm

    hi marek,
    my workflow was: tiling in processing + exporting the pdf, import pdf to illustrator, import to indesign via clipboard and last but not least run some custom scripts to fill each “rectangle” with text … hope this helps.

  16. Comment by frede — 2007 Oct 17 @ 11:03 pm

    thanks for sharing. werd des gleich mal ausprobieren. gruss

  17. Pingback by Fahrt ins Blaue » Blog Archiv » Zufallsgenerator, Python via Nodebox — 2007 Nov 20 @ 11:13 am

    […] Empfehlungen für Designer und die Übrigen sind Processing, Scriptographer und VVVV, Scripting in Indesign, Fontlab Studio und per JQuery, wenn das WebDesign quält. Es gibt mit Zope ein auf Python […]

  18. Comment by sathish — 2008 Feb 26 @ 11:39 am

    Hi,

    Any body have idea about autogeneration of index from a indesign book file.

    thanks
    sathish

  19. Comment by teickner — 2008 Mar 6 @ 9:26 pm

    hey bene!

    long time no see.
    have’nt visited your portfolio-site for “years”…
    and really enjoyed looking at your “new” works (they are actually from last year ;) but new … at least for me). your diploma/book/poster looks great!

    cheers!
    t

  20. Comment by kapil — 2008 May 13 @ 6:52 pm

    pl. given some tutorials
    thanks

  21. Pingback by r-echos » Blog Archive » Posters and Indesign Scripting — 2008 Sep 2 @ 9:34 am

    […] Benedikt Groß » Diploma - Posters and Indesign Scripting […]

  22. Pingback by Generative Typography and Layout « somethingXY — 2008 Oct 18 @ 6:24 pm

    […] book on generative imaging techniques called Generative Systeme. In the process, they created some Indesign scripts and have released them for public enjoyment. The above poster showcases a few scripts like […]

  23. Pingback by Benedikt Groß’s Diploma Indesign Scripting « Thesis Thesis — 2009 Oct 13 @ 1:22 am

    […] in Generative Print, Indesign Scripting, Other Generative Tools by Tiffany on October 12, 2009 Diploma posters at Groß’s site leave a comment « Guy Haviv’s Generative […]

  24. Pingback by InDesign: Applescript Effekte / Generative Gestaltung « PIXELSTAUB.DE/BLOG — 2010 Feb 19 @ 4:01 pm

    […] ich kürzlich mal wieder über Benjamin Groß’ MrGenerativeSystemeScriptPack_1.0 gestolpert bin, habe ich mich mal an die Programmierung eines Appelscript-Effekt-Kits für InDesign […]


Leave a comment

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI