Co-creator of "Processing" and founder of Fathom Information Design — Ben Fry (@ben_fry) — on the beginnings of the Processing programming environment, the use of information design and visualization to understand complicated data problems, and his approach to design, life, & work.


Ben Fry is founder and principal of Fathom Information Design, a studio in Boston focused on understanding complicated data problems. He holds a Ph.D. from the MIT Media Laboratory and is a Lecturer at MIT. Fry has authored and co-authored multiple books and develops "Processing" — the programming environment he co-created with Casey Reas used by artists, engineers, scientists, and students all over the world since 2001. His work can be found in museums, feature films, research labs, and the portfolios of Fathom's clients such as Nike, JP Morgan, DARPA, and National Geographic. In 2011, Fry was honored to visit the White House to receive the National Design Award for Interaction Design.

Connect with Ben at Fathom.info, benfry.com, and Processing.org.


Links



Processing


Netscape


Fathom Information Design


Arduino


OpenFrameworks

Open Render

acu by Ben Fry, Jared Schiffman, and Tom White (1999)


acWorld by Tom White, Jared Schiffman, and Ben Fry (1998)

acWindows by David Small (1996)

OpenGL


C++


Bad Windows by Bob Sabiston (1988)


Visible Language Workshop


Aesthetics + Computation Group (ACG)


Design by Numbers

Human genome project


NYU ITP


Valence by Ben Fry (1999)


Valence in Minority Report


National Air and Space Museum


Star Wars


Star Trek


NASA


MIT Media Lab


Valence in the Hulk


On needing approval for what we create, and losing control over how it's distributed by Ben Fry (2010)

SGI Octane


Photoshop


Sentinel typeface by Hoefler & Co.

National typeface by Klim


Fabriga typeface by Lux Typo


Ringside typeface by Hoefler & Co.

ProPublica


MacRecipes by Fathom

Rocky Morphology by Fathom

Books



The Information by James Gleick


The Innovators by Walter Isaacson


Movies



Big Hero 6


2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick


Alien by Ridley Scott

Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames

People mentioned



John Maeda


Casey Reas


Daniel Shiffman


Andres Colubri


Tom White


David Small


Bob Sabiston


John Underkoffler


Tom Cruise


Jose Luis García del Castillo y López


Jack Dorsey


Charles Kingsley


James Gleick


Walter Isaacson


Chapters


00:05 · Intro
02:05 · Ben Fry
06:00 · The beginnings of Processing
15:42 · Information design and visualization
16:33 · The human genome project
18:27 · Casey Reas
19:03 · Daniel Shiffman
22:02 · Valence
27:00 · John Underkoffler
27:44 · Valence in the Hulk
30:20 · On needing approval for what we create
40:17 · Building your own tools
45:57 · Your favorite user interface
47:36 · Typefaces
49:22 · What you look for in a design
52:21 · Fathom
59:07 · Projects that spread
01:01:32 · Is your life simple?
01:03:34 · Daily habits
01:04:26 · Non-work activities
01:05:06 · Boredom
01:05:51 · Social media
01:07:53 · Disconnection
01:10:44 · Technology
01:12:33 · Ads
01:16:31 · Success
01:18:28 · A message to the world
01:20:30 · Book recommendations
01:23:39 · Side projects
01:24:06 · Simplicity


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Theme song Sleep by Steve Combs under CC BY 4.0.


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