What is DBN?
Design By Numbers was
created for visual designers and artists as an introduction to computational
design. It is the result of a continuing endeavor by Professor John Maeda
to teach the “idea” of computation to designers and artists. It is his
belief that the quality of media art and design can only improve through
establishing educational infrastructure in arts and technology schools
that create strong, cross-disciplinary individuals.
DBN is both a programming environment
and language. The environment provides a unified space for writing and
running programs and the language introduces the basic ideas of computer
programming within the context of drawing. Visual elements such as dot,
line, and field are combined with the computational ideas of variables
and conditional statements to generate images.
are written in the right half of the environment and displayed in
sample program and its result.
DBN is not a general purpose programming language like C or Java, but was
designed to familiarize people with the basic concepts of computational
media. Studying DBN is a first step to take–not a final step. Its advantages
- free to use and multiplatform
- easy to understand syntax designed for beginners
- immediately accessible on the web
There are three primary components to the Design By Numbers System:
- Design By Numbers core software
This software contains the complete DBN environment and can be viewed
from the web or downloaded to an individual's computer.
- Design By Numbers book published by MIT
Takes readers step by step through the DBN language with explanation
- Design By Numbers Courseware
A flexibly designed website generator built for educators who want to
use DBN to teach computational design.