processing
Snarkbrainstorm
Hey, so I’m going to make something for Longshot Magazine tonight, and I would like to call upon your collective brainpower for just a moment to help get me started.
The theme is COMEBACK; it’s articulated powerfully and persuasively on Longshot’s site. I participated last time, and it was a blast, so I’m doing it again. But rather than write a traditional piece (with, you know… words) I want to do some sort of data visualization. I’ll find some data, filter and process it, then make it pretty with Processing.
But I have no idea what subject or data I’m going to explore. And I’m at work right now and can’t really think about it very hard until after 6 p.m. or so. So I thought I’d throw the question out to the assembled might of the Snarkmatrix.
When you think COMEBACK and read Longshot’s pitch, what springs to mind?
What might be a good question or hypothesis to start with?
What’s a data set that people might not traditionally consider a data set?
This might require some constellational thinking.
Update: okay, I figured something out. Woo!
Annabel Scheme
Not a book trailer; more of an animated book cover. That wasn’t my initial intent, but sorta just how it evolved. As I was playing with the twisty lines in Processing, I found myself thinking: I want these writhing on the front of the book! Hmm. Some day.
You can see it mega-widescreen over on YouTube.
The soundtrack is a track by Boy Eats Drum Machine, one of my current favorites. Here he is on Amazon MP3.
Building an imaginary tower
Over at robinsloan.com, as part of my Kickstarter book project, I just posted a behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of an illustration. This one, in fact:
And, nerds take note, it involves Processing! Which, just between you and me, was probably not 100% necessary—but, as I’ve said before, one should always be looking for excuses to use cool tools.