2025 Bridges Conference Math + Fashion

Algorithmic Designs For Socks (DFS) by AlgoArt

Designers

Michael Wehar

Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA

mwehar@brynmawr.edu

algoart.org

github.com

View exhibition history

Biography

The AlgoArt Platform (algoart.org) was created to bring together artists and programmers to develop algorithmically generated visual designs and patterns. The resulting patterns have a variety of use cases, but we have focused on fashion and more specifically, on designs for clothing. During Bridges 2024, we presented our algorithmically generated designs on tee shirts. For this work, we present Algorithmic Designs For Socks, or simply DFS, where we apply three drawing algorithms to generate visual designs for printing and stitching onto socks. Socks have turned out to be a particularly challenging medium because printed images stretch on the material in unexpected ways leading to changes in color perception and image shape. As a result, we had to be selective in our image choices and experiment with stitching designs over printing. We were able to make eight pairs of socks that we will have available for display at the Bridges Fashion Show. Photographs of these selected sock designs have been provided.

Looks

Image for look 'Eight Generated Sock Designs'

Photograph of eight algorithmically generated sock designs on models.

Photographer: Stephen Voight Models: Lily Cass, Tuhin Gupta, Chunan Liu, and Amanda Warwick

Image for look 'Eight Generated Sock Designs'

Photograph of the eight socks by themselves.

Photographer: Michael Wehar

About the look

Eight Generated Sock Designs

Socks

2025

Images 1 and 2 feature eight sock designs that were created using drawing algorithms on the AlgoArt Platform. Two of the featured sock designs were created using the "Stickers" drawing algorithm by Michael Wehar. Below is an excerpt from this algorithm's official description. "This algorithm repeatedly draws 'stickers' onto the canvas. The stickers take the form of different geometric patterns that resemble recognizable shapes such as Squares, Circles, Flowers, Stars, Houses, Cookies, Christmas Trees, Ice Cream Cones, etc." Four of the featured sock designs were created using the "Voronoi" drawing algorithm by Jhovani Gallardo Moreno. Below is an excerpt from this algorithm's official description. "From a top-down view, a set of plant cells arranged together side-by-side appears like a tiling of a plane. After reading about different methods that can be used to create intriguing patterns / tilings, I discovered Voronoi diagrams which were originally conceptualized by the mathematician Georgy Voronoy." Lastly, the two remaining featured sock designs were created using the "Composition" drawing algorithm by Xingyu (Kevin) Dong. Below is an excerpt from this algorithm's official description. "We iteratively draw straight lines of different lengths either vertically or horizontally. After finishing all the lines, we color each block enclosed by the lines with a color from our palette. This is the general process for creating images using our 13th algorithm – Composition which is inspired by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872–1944)."