I completed the barcode transformation assignment from the assignment bank. When I discovered this task, and saw the zebra example that was posted with the assignment description in the assignment bank, I knew that I wanted to transform my barcode into a penguin.

(created by Sarah French)

I chose a penguin for a couple of reasons –

1. They are my FAVORITE animal.

2. Their natural color scheme is consistent with the black and white of the barcode.

How it was made:

This week, I decided to try an online editing program, Canva. I really liked that some of the features it offered, but I was not able to figure out a way to “fill” my image with the barcode. So, back to my trusty friend, PowerPoint, I go. (Hopefully I will figure out Canva enough later to use it for another assignment!)

To begin this assignment, I opened PowerPoint and copy and pasted in an image of the outline of a penguin.

Next, I used the Remove Background tool by going to Format Picture>Remove Background.

In order to use this tool, simply click on the areas of the photo that you do not want to include. The tool will cast the unwanted areas in a shade of purple, leaving only the desired areas in their original color. Simply continue to click around the image until you have removed all of the areas that you want to get rid of.

For this image, I chose to remove the white space inside of the penguin and to leave the areas around the penguin.

Then, I inserted an image of a barcode via copy and paste.

This barcode image is currently sitting on top of my penguin. In order to move the barcode behind the penguin, right click on the barcode and select rearrange overlapping objects.

Another menu will pop up with each image on your screen having its own pane. Simply click and drag the panes into the order you would like and select OK.

When you move the barcode behind the other image, the barcode will fill the space that we made empty when we used the Remove Background tool.

To what point can an object be distorted while still being the same object? To what point can a barcode be transformed while keeping its stored information intact? Ah these age old questions. What does a barcode represent anyway? No one really cares about how it looks visually anyway. They only care about the information stored in the barcode. Now of course these two things are…wait for it… isomorphic, however no one thinks of the barcode in terms of how it looks, only in terms of information. Here we will take a look at both things:

I really liked the title of this design assignment. Specifically I really liked the word transformation. It got me thinking, If i take a barcode, and start erasing parts of it to make a picture, what would happen to the data. At what point will the data in the barcode be completely corrupted? So my idea then became, take the barcode and try to transform it without destroying the data.

I started with a barcode that stored the value 1. My idea then became to make the barcode display a 1 while still representing the value 1. It proved more difficult than I thought. I downloaded a free app onto my phone to read the barcode to see how my modifications changed the value of the barcode, and it seemed weird how the value would jump around. I finally got the above barcode to actually still read 1 sometimes!  I think it works because the data is encoded based on the width/spacing of the bars horizontally, so the missing portions of the image don’t destroy the data as long a the reader can see the top or bottom slice that’s actually still intact.

For this assignment (worth 2.5 stars), we were asked to create a bar code in the shape of an object.

I chose a double scooped ice cream cone because it’s really hot outside and ice cream sounds amazing in this scorching summer heat (it’s really not THAT hot but who doesn’t like ice cream).

To create the bar code ice cream, I googled ice cream silhouette and came up with this picture:

I saved it to my computer and pasted it into Paint.  I created lines through the picture and made sure they were straight.  I right clicked on the originally black lines and inverted them to make them white.  It create the illusion that it was a bar code.

I went back to google to find bar code numbers and used this one:

I then cut and pasted the numbers under the ice cream cone to turn it into this:

For this assignment (worth 2.5 stars), I had to make some barcode art. I decided to make this related to my character, Folami Turay. This is a piece that Folami would have hanging in her living room. It expresses her internal conflict with being a stripper, someone who plays an integral part in an industry that commodifies and erases the humanity of women. However, she does what she needs to do to survive and understands that she shouldn’t feel guilty about the way she makes a living.

To create this image, I found a picture of a stripper on a pole on Google Images. Then, I used Photoshop to erase the area around the stripper. Next, I cut that shape out of a barcode that I also found on Google. Finally, I gave the image a strong red background, a color I chose due to its connotation of fire and passion.

This assignment was a little more involved than I initially thought but that did not take away from the fun or new things I learned from Gimp and making it work with paint. I wanted to apply it to Mack so I borrowed an image of a gun (not very familiar with them or their relation to time periods so forgive my ignorance) and blacked it out in Gimp.

Then…

Once I had it blacked out and still looking like a gun I added some white lines to make it look like a barcode and the numbers underneath.  I think it turned out pretty good.

I decided to go with the gun because I thought it would represent him really well and look pretty cool after the barcode transformation.