Magazine or periodical
Design and the Computer
1966A landmark double issue of Design Quarterly devoted to the computer as a tool for design and as a creative medium. Edited by Peter Seitz, it brings together writing on interactive computer-aided design, architectural planning, automobile design, automated printing, computer animation and visual art.
- Author / editor
- Peter Seitz, editor
- Publisher
- Walker Art Center
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA - Format
- Design Quarterly
- Pages
- 72
- Language
- English
- Edition
- Nos. 66/67
PDF document
Full textEnglish · 16 MB
William A. Fetter’s “Computer Graphics” (pp. 14–23) contains secure published documentation of Boeing’s articulated computer model of a human figure in 1966. Fetter describes a model based on a fiftieth-percentile United States Air Force pilot and organized into seven articulated systems so that it could be seated, positioned and tested for reach. The accompanying illustrations include frontal, seated and extreme-reach views of the figure now commonly called Boeing Man or First Man.
The issue places Fetter’s industrial work within a much broader history of computational creativity. Steven A. Coons discusses interactive graphical design and three-dimensional modelling; Kenneth C. Knowlton explains computer-generated films and rule-based patterns; and A. Michael Noll explicitly considers the digital computer as an artistic medium combining order, randomness and human aesthetic judgment.
Reference:
Seitz, Peter, ed. Design and the Computer. Design Quarterly, nos. 66/67. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1966. JSTOR.
Article reference:
Fetter, William A. “Computer Graphics.” Design Quarterly, nos. 66/67 (1966): 14–23. https://doi.org/10.2307/4047328.