think program

The think program explores all the variations, versions, phases, and perspectives of design and code, similarly to how we observe life from different vantage points or how a tadpole becomes a frog.

This is actually a synopsis of Emilio Ambasz’ 1973 MoMA exhibition based on Gerstner’s book: Designing Programms.

It was intriguing how he showed more than one aspect of design that had all these variants — in typography, formatting, coding — making you think further about the steps in design.

What is another medium or form could you apply this way of thinking to?

What I took away from this was to always think about my intention and problem solving with design even if it is simple. For instance, when talking about typography, he explained that you should know the intent first before altering it.

This reminded me of the Noordzij Cube that I first saw in the ‘History of Type’ lectures by Lynne Yun. It explores many dimensions of optical size, contrast, weight, etc.