Katie Simm (She/Her)
I am a process-led designer. I enjoy learning new software and experimenting with its technicalities, to produce work that is both contemporary and innovative. I am interested in the process of designing generative systems – particularly how they can subvert their original purpose. My influences often lie within written media, I spend time investigating this subject area with plenty of breadth, from news articles to poetry. Subsequently, my work often explores narrative and how to show an alternative perspective.
Currently, my practice focuses on type, motion graphics, and creative coding.
In Focus
In Focus aims to celebrate early experiments within technology and how it’s progressed over the last 100 years, to commemorate the centenary of the BBC. The exhibition encompasses a sense of nationalism, highlighting how technology has allowed the nation to stay connected and witness iconic moments in history together.
After studying early experiments into colour television that were carried out between 1947-1967, I based the identity for In Focus on the PAL colour system. PAL was used for the first televised colour broadcast, utilising interlacing signals which allowed automatic colour correction. The new range of coloured hues that PAL allowed were celebrated after years of experimenting with coloured television.
Passage
Inspired by Yeats’ poem ‘The Second Coming, Passage is an interactive webpage that connects both anachronistic and contemporary pieces of writing on the Anthropocene.
Referencing romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Blake, I wanted to create hypothetical environments that were immersive and strangely beautiful. Using coded visuals, I explored what potential landscapes could exist within the Anthropocene – combining natural scenes with generative systems.
Through a series of shrouded landscapes that the user must uncover and navigate, the webpage aims to play on each writer’s interpretation of how this new world could be perceived.
Link to website here (desktop only)
WIP Website
Collaborative project by Katie Simm and Sadie Brookes
Utilising the digital assets given by the identity team focusing on the idea of punch cards and how our ideas materialise into physical form, we wanted to emulate the mechanical process of clocking in with punch cards. We decided to play with the idea of digitising the physical and created interactive elements such as a custom cursor, icons and opening animation to mimic the motion of physically clocking in.
