Experiments in Constraint-Based Graphic Design
Hi HN! I've been frustrated with standard GUI-based design tools, because they don't match the way I think: like a programmer, in terms of relationships and abstractions. (Does this resonate with the community here?)So I've been hacking on this new DSL for design that allows the designer to specify figures in terms of relationships, which are compiled down to constraints and solved using an SMT solver. This also leads to good support for abstraction, because constraints compose nicely.The system is still a WIP, but it's usable enough that I made all the figures and diagrams in my latest paper and presentation with it, so I thought I'd write up a blog post about it and share some results.This post is about how I think about design and how the programming language implements this philosophy. It also contains a number of case studies of designing real figures with the tool.There are also some (probably useless?) but really amusing results, like what happens if you solve figures via gradient descent: https://www.anishathalye.com/#gradient-descent (the result is oddly satisfying).I'd love to hear what you all think about the ideas in the post. Do you share any of my frustrations with existing design tools? How do you think when doing design -- does your model match mine, or is it something different? Do you currently use any design tools that you're really happy with, that I should know about?