The Image-Interface

4Designing Image-Interfaces

Using interfaces routinely paves the way to different predicative scenes that can be identified, such as editing a photo, making a digital draw, compositing channels of video and audio, writing a novel or essay and discovering a new programming language. These scenes are the underlying ground for establishing processes that will be recognized as kinds of practices, for example, using an interface with educational, professional or artistic intentions. When a scene of practice is identified, we may then talk about fields, domains and disciplines.

In Chapter 3, we saw numerous examples of graphical interfaces designed to support practices associated mostly with image creation (we also displayed some examples where the interface is graphical enough to convey plastic dimensions of texts and other types of information). In this chapter, we pay special attention to those cases where the image being manipulated acts as the graphical interface itself.

We are thinking about multidisciplinary fields at the crossroads of several disciplines such as graphic design, data science, computer science and humanities. The kinds of results that are produced from those perspectives include data visualization, networks graphs, infographics, cultural analytics and data art.

As we mentioned earlier, our intention with this book is to inform creative practices with the constituent and technical aspects behind the design of graphical interfaces. The kind of practice that we ...