About
Together with the technologies that emerge and evolve, the world keeps changing – and so does our work. Inseparably linked to technology, Graphic Design is particularly affected by those changes. But as every disruption also means development, there are new possibilities emerging that fundamentally change the work of designers.
In the early stages of my graphic design and art studies, I learned two things that have shaped all of my creative work to this day: build on basics and feel free to fail. With these two simple principles in mind, I managed not only to master my studies but developed an attitude, that – no matter what changes might come – will guide me to deal with them. With my courses and the platform that I build around them, I aim to convey exactly that.
Why learn Creative Coding?
When you’re constantly diving trough the world wide web like I am, you can’t help but recognize that there is a new trend in graphic design and technology at every corner. But driven by the fear of missing out, I learned that following these trends won’t help you expand your creative potential.
Always cultivating proactive instead of reactive behavior, in 2013 I decided to follow my principles, overcome my fear of programming and explore the realms of Creative Coding. This bold decision guided me into unexplored territories where I have learned a myriad of things: Let me at least point out three of them:
- through working with code, I better understood the principles of digitalization and technology.
- I differentiated myself from other designers through my work, emerging from my unique skillset.
- I understood that being part of a community is the key to make progress
Creative Coding: Courses and Community
Thrilled by the huge findings I discovered in my work and personal development, I felt the need to share my experiences. I decided to start teaching Creative Coding at universities but I quickly realized that I wanted to inspire even more people with this approach. This was the start of trcc.
Since then, I developed fifteen courses with over XX learning hours, hosted numerous live sessions, Q&As, community gatherings and inspired hundreds of graphic designers all around the globe to get in touch with Creative Coding. Today, trcc offers one of the best developed curricula to learn the basics of Creative Coding in graphic design and provides answers for many possible use cases. And if there is no answer for a case yet, be sure that the community finds it together.
Do you want to join us? Here’s what you get
Courses
The ever-growing, living curriculum is the core of the entire project. I have built it with resilience and timelessness in mind, aiming to teach a strong foundational skillset with universal principles.
It starts with the first course “Creative Coding Essentials” and leads you on an extensive learning path through the realms between graphic design and creative coding. The focus is on technical as well as methodological and aesthetic aspects. Almost all lessons contain videos, code snippets to copy paste and related links.
Community
My Discord server is the place where you can exchange and network with other learners. Here you can ask coding questions, discuss your work with everyone else, but also find lots of resources and inspiration.
Blog
The blog is the repository for inspiring content around Creative Coding. Here I share interviews (Conversations) with people from the community, but also prototypes, freely available tutorials, recordings of my livestreams, essays and case studies of commissioned work.
Patreon
On my Patreon page you will find another newsfeed, which documents my progress in the development of the platform and announces all important new content. Here you can give me feedback via the comment function, share questions and ideas and thus actively participate in the development of the platform.
All membership-features at a glance
| free | Supporter | Student | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access to the Discord server | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Read blogposts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reveal code-snippets | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Weekly updates via Patreon | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Full access to all courses | ✓ | ||
| Student role on Discord | ✓ |
Signing up is easy as abc, all you have to do is joining my Patreon and connect your account to this website.
Ready? Sign up via Patreon!One more thing
It is important to me not to make empty promises. Learning creative coding – especially together with an inspiring and mutually supportive community – is incredibly fun, but it also means being curious, sticking to it and practicing. My courses are designed to help you achieve quick results and stay motivated, but I won’t promise you that you’ll be a pro in 5 weeks. Learning progress is always up to you. As I would have wished it for myself, my approach to teaching is encouraging and not overwhelming. And I am certainly by your side to support you in the best possible way. If you want to know more about me to see, if I might be the right teacher for you, feel free to visit my profile page.
Voices
I have been wanting to learn Processing/p5.js for many years. But it was only when I came across Tim’s website and saw his passion for learning and teaching Creative Coding that I felt compelled to give it a try. Tim’s background in graphic design and experience with live music performance also caught my attention because it adds extra layers of helpful information to his courses. And the way he shows how it is possible to create visually compelling posters, moving type, grid systems, random collages or data visualisation with code did open my eyes to the unexplored territories of Creative Coding. It is a new world I want to explore too.
Na Ueda (Artist)
Tim is one of the best teachers I had the pleasure to learn from. His community-driven approach in combination with an easy-to-grasp teaching method focused on basic principles is just great! Tim is not only a great Creative Coding teacher, but he also taught me a lot of useful stuff about design thinking and the creative process as well. Highly recommend it to everyone who is willing to learn code creatively!
Tomáš Kostrzeva (Graphic Designer)
I’ve been part of Tim’s community for two years now and the excitement just hasn’t worn off! The talks and tutorials I’ve been able to access through being a Paetron help to continually inspire me and I’ve met the most incredible people.
Lily Montague (Creative Computing and Design student, London QMUL)
Tim’s courses have given me insight into the incredible possibilities of designing with code. Since then I often use some custom filters for my poster designs. I was immediately kicked by the aesthetics of Processing.
Cihan Tamti (art director and publisher)
Tim’s platform has been extremely helpful for me to dive into the universe of “Creative Coding”. With a strong background in printed editorial design, his courses and the trcc community were a tremendous help to me. With it, I have learned in a joyful way to creatively use the potential that lies in “Creative Coding” for my purposes. What we are experiencing in our industry right now is an unprecedented pace of progress – which many universities are already unable to keep up with. Tim manages to convey these fundamental changes in such a joyful way that takes the terror out of them. An absolute recommendation for anyone curious about the future.
Cyrill Kuhlmann (Creative Director / Head of Cope Studio)
As a data scientist and information designer, I have always been interested in exploring the intersection between beauty and data. Tim’s creative coding courses opened up a new world to me. They gave me more tools and ideas worth exploring that I can now use in my visualizations. But most important of all: the courses introduced me to Processing, which I now use on a daily basis and is a great asset to have.
Guillermina Sutter Schneider (Data scientist & Information designer based in Washington DC and Berlin)
The courses are the most compact and efficient way to get familiar with the basic building blocks that are important for a Creative Coding. Especially for beginners but also for advanced users a super chance to feel confident in coding! I already had experience and the course helped me fill in gaps and get a better overall understanding and confidence for Creative Coding projects!
Lena Weber (former master-student at Bauhaus University Weimar)
Tim made me realise that coding is an incredibly important skill which facilitates both problem solving and creative thinking. Tim is a wonderful mentor and is the reason I have been able to learn so in depth about the possibilities of code. His courses are well thought out and it’s clear how much time and preparation he puts into them. Even though his courses are to an exceptionally high standard, Tim breaks it down so the lessons are easy to process and understand.
Laverna Ellis (Designer at Feed/DEPT)
I tried to learn Processing by copying other people’s code for many years, but never succeeded to be creative on my own. Tim’s courses are so valuable because he properly explains what what happens in the code and then he gives you the freedom to code/think for yourself. Tim is not teaching tricks. He teaches independent minds.
Dr. Martin Lorenz (Director of TwoPoints.Net, Author of “Flexible Visual Systems”)
As a recently graduated graphic designer, Tim’s Patreon has helped me use code to create posters, motion graphics, responsive design systems and custom typography. The Patreon overall has helped shape my approach to design. It’s hard to get how much it’s helped me in a couple of sentences.
Storm Dobson (Graphic Designer)
Tim’s courses taught me all the basics of everything I know about coding in Processing, and he continues to serve as a valued source of inspiration and support as well. If you don’t know where to start I would definitely recommend his courses, easy to digest and they give deep understanding of the most important principles in coding.
Tameem Sankari (Design Director, Outlanders Design Dubai)
Everything I know started with Tim’s courses. I still go back and reference them from time to time. I recommend Tim to literally everybody.
Jake Welch (designer and artist)
Do i need a background in coding?
No, absolutely not! It actually does not play a role anyway if you have prior knowledge in coding. My curriculum starts at zero with the first course Creative Coding Essentials.
What is Creative Coding?
That’s a great question! I personally like this definition:
(Creative Coding) is a process, based on exploration, iteration, reflection and discovery, where code is used as the primary medium to create a wide range of media artifacts.
Mark Mitchell, Oliver C. Bown: Towards a Creativity Support Tool in Processing. Understanding the Needs of Creative Coders. ACM Press 2013, page 143–146, cited according to: Stig Møller Hansen: public class Graphic_Design implements Code {//Yes, but how?}: an investigation towards bespoke Creative Coding programming courses in graphic design education, Aarhus 2019, page 13. Link
Basically, I wrote a whole master’s thesis on this question. You can read it in German and in English. If you don’t wan’t to dive that deep, you can find a more condensed definition in this chapter.
I want to follow a few of your courses; I was wondering how long on average they take?
That’s cool! The courses are not too long. The focus of the curriculum is, to provide a low barrier access to Creative Coding. How long it takes to go through a course is based on how intense you study and how much time you spent.
Why do you use Processing and p5.js for your teaching?
The Processing programming language has a long history and has gathered a huge global community over the last 20 years. Processing is the best documented and most widely used technology for creative coding. The principles of Processing are extremely well elaborated and have been adapted by many other languages.
At the same time, Processing is not limited to any particular medium and can be used for almost any output imaginable. With p5.js, there is now a stable technology directly from the Processing ecosystem that can be used to implement interactive experiences on the web. Processing is fundamentally much more than just a language. It is a way of thinking. And because this technology has been around for 20 years and is exceptionally stable,
Do you record the online-events?
Hey, i love to hear that you are interested in our events. Unfortunately, I can not record tem, otherwise I would violate the privacy of the participants. I am very sorry!
Will I get direct support when I have a coding question?
Hey! I’d love to but unfortunately i don’t have the time to do so. But we have this very cool Discord-server where you can share your questions with the community. There are some very smart people in there who love to tackle complicated problems.