Software Arts Program

This is a talk by two web professionals who studied art in school but ended up programming for a living. Both are extremely technical and proficient programmers, both come from a strong Arts program in college. Is it time to start thinking differently about Software and Education?

The popular opinion that software gets built by engineers is a false generalization and that generalization can lead people to believe that being “creative” or “artsy” means you won’t be good at software development.

In this session, Josh and Dustin will explore the different ways our experience in art inspires our solutions in programming. Graphic design has given insight into being professional web developer in a number of surprising ways:

• Craft - Precision and clarity is a mark of professionalism
• Limit - Working inside the box can make your solution more clever
• Details - Small problems can be big
• Language - Efficient communication requires structure and grammar.
• Sketch - visually and physically think through the problem before solving the problem
• Unfinished - Showing unfinished work breeds better feedback.
• More to come as we develop this idea :)

While we both agree that the technical mind can’t necessarily be summarized by a simple title, we have different experiences professionally and in education. Josh, who had more talent in artistic tools like photoshop than art itself, was encouraged to explore the creative side. Dustin, who has had held the more popular opinion that Programmers should choose Math and Science to study found that “after four years of drawing naked people” programming was an obvious next step.

Meet Josh Miller
Josh is an art major that was only one of two males to earn his way into the prestigious Visual Communications and Design program at Purdue University waaaay back in 2003. Out of 600 student applicants, only 30 students were chosen based on their portfolio. He went on to make all of his art professors shake their heads in disappointment when a perfectly good graphic designer joined the ranks of programmers.

Meet Dustin LeBlanc
Dustin is an Art major who entered the web world almost a decade after college. Dustin believed for years that programming was the domain of the ‘math kids’. He co-maintains Lando and has a long history of contributing to Drupal and open source.