The basil.js project began in 2012, with an initiative to bring our visual communication students into generative design using their environment of choice, Adobe InDesign. For years, Adobe's ExtendScript Toolkit enabled scripting every aspect of their software suite, however it was intended for developers with advanced programming knowledge. We invited Benedikt Groß for a workshop after learning about [his own explorations](https://benedikt-gross.de/projects/diploma-generative-systeme-posters), which led to a warning of how much code would be required for students to simply draw a rectangle. Realizing this could be simplified to address designers, he began developing a [Processing](https://processing.org) inspired library that included useful functions from [processing.js](http://processingjs.org). We quickly realized the potential of this work and spent the following nine months developing a library that brings automation and scripting into layout (basil)! Released free as in speech under an MIT License on Feburary 28th 2013, we've been excited to see its reach and usage throughout the design community. Over the past years, basil.js has enabled designers to bridge InDesign's offering of precise typography within multi-page documents with data-driven and generative contents.
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