A logo with a white top quarter and a turquoise bottom three-quarters. There is a yellow ribbon going through both the white and the turquoise sections at the top with white cursive text in it that says "Design Prompt." Below the ribbon, in the turquoise section is the #8 in white sans serif font, with the word “Photographic" underneath it, also in white, but in all caps and it looks like the words appear in a filmstrip, so each letter is in its own individual frame.

Today’s Design-A-Day prompt comes from NYC-based artist Anne Spalter. Her recent 3,000 square foot installation, Precession, featured “kaleidoscoped” photographs of the iconic New York skyline and Coney Island printed on wallpaper and displayed on canvas prints and video screen. The result was a surreal and psychedelic experience! We caught up with Anne during the installation of the SPRING/BREAK Art Show exhibit to learn more about how she works from photographs to create her vision.

time_1 from Anne Morgan Spalter on Vimeo. A captivating time-lapse video of Anne’s photographic wallpaper being installed.

With 200 custom strips of Spoonflower-printed Smooth Wallpaper and 12 video screens to set the scene, Precession transformed the lobby of New York City’s 34th St. Beaux-Arts Post Office into a journey through a day in New York City. Images arranged by the time of day when the image was captured guided the trip, with “kaleidoscoped” images evoking the frenetic energy of the city throughout the space. From images taken from a helicopter above the East River and from an amusement park ride at Coney Island, Anne built a cohesive and whimsical work of art.


But how, then, do you use your photographs to create patterns and convey feelings? Anne is a prolific photographer, traveling for the sole purpose of taking beautiful photos and having her iPhone at hand to capture images she finds appealing, but she does not think of her artistic work as “photography.” The photograph is just the start of the creative process.

An image of the boardwalk at night on Coney Island. People are walking down the boardwalk far away, and there are telephone poles running down the boardwalk on the right and lit up amusement park rides on the left side of the boardwalk.

Anne draws on the aspects of the photograph that drew her to take the image in the first place – whether it’s the landscape, colors, motion, composition – and then works with that element to emphasize that aspect to the audience.

Her advice: work with an image to bring out the aspect you like, and get rid of bits that don’t emphasize what you’re hoping to communicate.

In Anne’s toolkit: Adobe Photoshop and After Effects for patterning and creating a kaleidoscopic effect.

A sun is rising (or is it setting?) over a bridge, shining through an orange-pink sly.

An image of the sun rising (or is it setting?) over a large skyline. The sky is orange right above the city with some gray and orange clouds reaching over the river that is closer to the viewer than the skyline. There is a boat in the river creating a small white wake. And snow is covering the bits of metal docks extending into the lake nearest the viewer.

An image of a sun rise (or is it a sunset?) over a city and a river in the foreground and an image of a lit-up ferris wheel are blended together, as if looking through a kaleidoscope, where all of the bits of the image are evenly reflected against mirrors to make them appear disordered or ripped apart.

Throughout her artistic career, Anne has explored different ways to present her photographic images – on large canvases and video screens. She has more recently incorporated custom wallpaper with Spoonflower, and laughs that discovering how many things can be printed onto fabric and paper has made her apartment somewhat of a Spoonflower showroom. Sometimes, a photo of your pet is all you need for the perfect design, after all.

Two images side by side. On the left a table is covered in bunny portraits set in gilded golden-looking frames. A brown-and-white spotted dog is sitting on a couch behind the table. On the right is an image of a white bunny with black years and black spots on its face sitting on a maroon seat which is placed on cream carpet.



Anne Morgan Spalter portraitAnne Morgan Spalter
explores the relationship between observation and algorithm to create modern landscapes. The resulting combinations of real and abstract, perspective and pattern, personal and universal creates a new type of landscape art. Spalter’s modern landscapes are part of her long-standing goal of integrating art and technology. She created and taught the first digital fine art courses and The Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University. Spalter is also the author of the highly regarded text The Computer in the Visual Arts, which combines technical and theoretical aspects of the field of computer art and design. She is represented by IMPAKTO gallery in Lima, Peru.