Who Works With 'Creative Coders?'

Degrees and academic trajectories that combine design and programming as a way of creating digital media are becoming increasingly popular these days at educational institutions around the US and Europe.  Students learn tools like Processing, OpenFrameworks, Cinder and ThreeJS to complete a variety of projects.  Some of these ‘creative coders*’ even approach mastery of these platforms through the course of their degree.  

An observation I’ve made over the past few years as a contract designer/programmer, and one that I hadn’t realized while in grad school, is that the practice of ‘creative coding’ is not just a way of learning within an institution, but a way of doing that has actual value to things connected to commerce in the outside world.  However upon completion of such programs that combine designing and programming, students with this skill-set may get on the job boards and find positions like “Interaction Designer,” “Graphic Designer,” “iOS Developer.”  Once adapting to roles inside these companies, they may boldly choose to continue their creative coding practice in their white-space time or occasionally in the creation of a rapid prototype.  But its often the case that this practice starts to make less sense when working on a large team of project managers and developers who have set ideas about how to make software.  Going forward, many technically-skilled designers stop at wireframes and user-flows, and use their creative coding experience as a reference point, rather than a skill.  Similarly many developers with valuable design insights may find themselves knee-deep in requirements, bug-tracking, and implementing what’s presented to them in the wires, rather than offering their own creative input on the front-end.  

Recently though, the work world has begun warming up to ‘creative coding.’  Hacking now has a positive connotation.  Many people working in companies who’ve never studied creative technology know about things like Processing and Arduino.   The world is also no longer flat, but fully 3D, immersive, augmented, to the point where traditional design planning deliverables can not do it full justice.  Furthermore, companies are beginning to recognize that a work-flow where designers strictly design and developers strictly develop, though resulting in stable, requirement-driven software, is prohibitive to the kinds of synaptic leaps and bounds that can happen in the minds of talented individuals who are given the freedom to move back and forth through designing and coding to see a concept to completion.  It can no longer be ignored that today the ideas resulting from ‘creative coding’ explorations aren’t just ending up as side projects on company sites, but making their way into actual applications, websites, commercials and physical products of top design and technology players in the industry.  

In conclusion I’ve reached out to the peers in my immediate ‘creative coding’ community and helped assemble this list of institutions—both EU and Stateside—that are using creative coding in capacities ranging from specific projects to full-on day-to-day practice.  This is by no means a complete list—there are more companies out there that I’m sure we’re not aware of and more still who will eventually make this a part of their design practice.  They also operate in a variety of fields, ranging from motion graphics, to application design, to museum/ event-based installations, to games** to custom hardware.  They use or have used such tools as Processing, OpenFrameworks, Cinder (those tools thought to only be things of the learning world or art world) to get incredible ideas off of the ground in business.  Some also have their own creative frameworks.  To the able-minded ‘creative coder,’ invested in their education and wondering where the opportunities are, a list of these institutions and their locations could be a good place to start:

Aeolab, Los Angeles CA, http://www.aeolab.com/
Apple, Cupertino CA, http://www.apple.com/
Art+Com, Berlin DE, http://www.artcom.de/
The Barbarian Group, SF/NYC, http://barbariangroup.com/
Brand New School, LA/NYC, http://brandnewschool.com/
Breakfast, Brooklyn NY, http://breakfastny.com/
Charlex, New York NY, http://charlex.com/
Control Group, New York NY, http://controlgroup.com/
Digital Domain, Venice CA, http://digitaldomain.com/
Electroland, Los Angeles CA, http://electroland.net/
Eyebeam, New York NY, http://eyebeam.org/
The Exploratorium, San Francisco CA, http://www.exploratorium.edu/
Fabrica, Treviso IT, http://fabrica.it/
Fathom, Boston MA, http://fathom.info/
Fake Love, New York NY, http://www.fakelove.tv/
Firstborn, New York NY, http://www.firstborn.com/
GAFFTA, San Francisco CA, http://www.gaffta.org/
George Legrady Studio, Santa Barbara CA, http://www.georgelegrady.com/
Google - Data Arts Team, Big Picture group, Mountain View CA, http://www.google.com/
Google Creative Lab, New York NY, http://www.google.com/
HAUS, Los Angeles CA, http://www.madeinhaus.com/
Hellicar & Lewis, London UK, http://www.hellicarandlewis.com/
Hush Studios, Brooklyn NY, http://heyhush.com/
Industrial Light & Magic, San Francisco CA, http://www.ilm.com/
Kollision, Aarhus Denmark, http://kollision.dk/
Left Field Labs, Venice CA, http://leftfieldlabs.com/
Local Projects, New York NY, http://localprojects.net/
Logan, Los Angeles CA, http://logan.tv/
The Mill, LA/NYC/London, http://www.themill.com/
Motion Theory / Mirada, Los Angeles CA, http://motiontheory.com/
Moving Brands, various locations worldwide, http://www.movingbrands.com/
MPC, various locations worldwide, http://www.moving-picture.com/
Nervous System, Somerville MA, http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/
Nexus Interactive Arts, London UK, http://www.nexusinteractivearts.com/
NYTimes R&D, New York NY, http://nytlabs.com/
Oblong Industries, Los Angeles CA, http://oblong.com/
Obscura Digital, San Francisco CA, http://obscuradigital.com/
Ogilvy, various locations wordwide, http://www.ogilvy.com/
Onformative, Berlin GE, http://www.onformative.com/
OtherLab, San Francisco CA, http://www.otherlab.com/
Pentagram, various locations wordlwide, http://www.pentagram.com/
Pitch Interactive, Berkeley CA, http://www.pitchinteractive.com/
Potion Design, New York NY, http://www.potiondesign.com/
@Radical, various locations worldwide, http://www.radicalmedia.com/
Reactable, Barcelona, http://www.reactable.com/
Red Paper Heart, Brooklyn NY, http://redpaperheart.com/
R/GA, various locations worldwide, http://www.rga.com/
Small Design Firm, Cambridge MA, http://smalldesignfirm.com/
Snibbe Interactive, San Francisco CA, http://www.snibbeinteractive.com/
Supertouch, New York NY, http://www.supertou.ch/
Sosolimited, Boston MA, http://www.sosolimited.com/
Stimulant, San Francisco CA, http://stimulant.io/
Stamen Design, San Francisco CA, http://stamen.com/
Type/Code, New York NY, http://typecode.com/
United Visual Artists, London UK,  http://www.uva.co.uk/
Wieden + Kennedy, various locations worldwide, http://www.wk.com/
YCAM, Yamaguchi Japan, http://www.ycam.jp/
Zero1, San Jose CA, http://www.zero1.org/
Zigelbaum+Coelho, Cambridge MA, http://zigelbaumcoelho.com/

* = ‘Creative coders,’ as emerging professionals, are too new by industry standards (and the application of their skills too vast) to have a name that can be universally agreed upon.  Some refer to the name ‘creative coder,’ and for this posting I will also do so, but tack on the more specific criteria that this person have anywhere from mid-level to advanced design and programming skills, and an established work-flow that involves both.  This role is not limited to the academically-trained, nor does it require a specific degree in design or engineering.  It can be learned by anyone with sufficient aptitude and talent.

** = game design in the context of ‘creative coding’ is something that I would like to explore in a future post.

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