BUILDINGS AND FACILITIES WILL REOPEN ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 27th
The Cooper Union will resume regular in-person operations on Tuesday, January 27th. Campus buildings and facilities will be open, and classes will return to their normal schedules.

Python for Visual Designers

Python for Visual Designers

Cost: $960.00

8 online sessions

Thursdays, March 26–May 14, 2026

6:30–9:30 PM

REGISTER ONLINE

Designers use tools to help us get our work done, but we rarely consider how much these tools can box us into certain processes and solutions in our work. Creating our own tools can lead us down new and unexpected avenues in our designs: some of the best visual ideas can come about by setting up some boundaries — a color palette, a typeface or two — and then running wild within the system. And working out a system in code is a great way to explore these ideas: computers love repetition and can quickly make hundreds of variations on a theme, and mistakes in the code can result in something that often looks better than what was originally intended. A quick sketch made with code in DrawBot can be saved as a vector or raster file as a starting point to be finished later in Illustrator or Photoshop. With more work in the code editor, you can build complex images, animations, posters, even entire zines or books without launching any further applications.

Workshop participants will learn the basics of the Python programming language while working in the free DrawBot application for MacOS. Using the fundamentals of the Python programming language, students will sketch to create vector art with code and use the basic principles of design to turn their sketches into PDF documents, animated .gifs and videos. During the first four weeks we’ll cover basic creative coding methods and write short sketches together to explore them. In the second four weeks we’ll build longer projects together for typographic and image/vector outputs using combinations of prewritten and scratch code, and exploring how to edit the code to create different outputs.

No programming experience is necessary for this course, but students should be comfortable doing some arithmetic and (very!) basic geometry. 

Required materials

  • A Mac running OS 10.9 (Mavericks) or later
  • A fast enough internet connection for video calls
  • This class will be held online, so using the Zoom desktop app is recommended

Course Code: PVD0326

Instructor(s): Maurice Meilleur

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.