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Climbing Up The Walls
Donna Scrimgeour
Project Detail
I designed algorithmic wallpaper for the “cat corner” in my sunroom. The area is where my cat Garfield has his food, water, medicine, bed and other supplies. I like to have his things organised and easy to get to whist looking good in the room as a whole. When designing the wallpaper I wanted to use the same method, a nod to the cat in a style that would have a positive impact on the rest of the room and as a bonus avoiding the “Cat Lady” persona.
In the project review the group really liked the whole black cat design. It was suggested to incorporate this randomly within the design as it would be a feature trying to spot the black cat. I was unable to work out how to do this using the P5.js coding tool, something that I would like to try to explore further. Instead I cut out and manually stuck the black cat on the design. It turns out it’s not so much try to “spot the black cat” but “the black cat is always watching” as I find that no matter where I am in the room he is there. An unexpected outcome but one that adds fun to the design and I have found myself becoming quite fond of him.
The inspiration behind the design was Picasso’s Cat Catching a Bird. This may be because somewhere in the back of my mind I was worried that by creating the bird feeder in the previous project that I was unwittingly setting up the birds.
When I first coded the shapes I stuck to the shape of the cat in the painting as close as I could. This resulted in the black and green pattern. I really like this pattern but not for the space I was creating it for as I think it needs to be in a bigger area to work. Instead of changing the area to fit the design I decided to stick to the brief and design for the area.
I changed the shape of the cat to make more interesting single tiles and a better pattern when combined. I also liked the design of the black cats that were not scrambled but it was too much cat for me.
About me
I like to try to find the fun in whatever I am designing.