Graphics, Imaging, and Games Lab

Existing media authoring software programs are generally regarded as offering little support for the earliest stages of the creative process, which have characteristics and needs that are distinct from the later stages. As a step toward addressing this, we present our constructural design philosophy: a set of principles that can be applied to software in any creative medium and under which we believe effective, early-stage creativity tools can be created. We then illustrate the application of these principles with Wheelsong, a complete, constructurally designed, early-stage music composition exploratorium and discuss a selection of musical sketches resulting from its use.