The Brilliant Line
Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480-1650.
Nominated for The 14th Annual Webby Awards / Art category
Communication Arts – Webpick of the week
The Design
This interactive installation was part of the RISD Museum’s 2010 physical Exhibition: The Brilliant Line, Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480-1650.
The Interaction
Andrew Raftery, an artist and printmaking instructor at RISD, wanted to bring awareness to and educate visitors on early engraving techniques in a simple and compelling way. After lots of brainstorming, iterations and experiments, we reached an ideal solution - Andrew selected 9 pieces of work from the exhibition and redrew them on transparent plastic paper. Each drawing consisted of four transparent plastic layers with strokes in different directions. When overlapped, the full engraving emerged. The next step was to scan and convert the four plastic layers into transparent PNGs, overlay them in Adobe Flash, and bring them alive with actionscript. The final result was a perfect slider driven interaction:
