Selected Work
Of the same kind. Never the same.
Kindred is a generative illustration system: hand-drawn tiles and coded rules of symmetry that make an endless family of faces.
The Idea
Where code, algorithms, and illustration meet
Kindred explores where the boundaries between code, algorithms, and illustration meet, producing an endless family of graphic faces, each one generated automatically. The idea underneath it: how we’re perceived from the outside is never one fixed image. It’s built from many separate perceptions of others and of ourselves, combined.
Every face sits on the same 5 by 5 grid and is built from 27 hand-drawn tiles, turned and flipped. Ten words build each face: nine choose the tiles and the tenth chooses the colour. So every face is different, and every face is kin.
Tiles drawn in Illustrator, system coded in p5.js.
How It Works
A few rules, and a family of faces
Twenty-five cells, nine jobs
Every face sits on the same 5 by 5 grid, and each cell belongs to one part of the face: frame, brow, eyes, nose, cheeks, jaw, chin corners, mouth, and chin.
Twenty-seven tiles
Every shape in every face comes from one sheet. Turn a tile and flip it: one shape, up to eight positions.
Draw half, mirror the rest
Ten words build each face, one part at a time. Nine choose tiles and the tenth chooses the colour. The rules draw half of each part and mirror the rest.
One word apart
Swap a single word and only a few tiles change. The rest stays put, which is why the faces read as family.
Add a relative
Roll ten words and a new face joins the line. The tiles are drawn by hand, the combinations are not.
Posters
Crowds for the wall
Each poster is a crowd of twelve faces drawn from the same rules. Prints are available on request: get in touch.
