Den grafiska designern Nicholas Felton, har med sina vackra och utförliga årsredovisningar imponerat på fler än mig. Jag blev nyfiken på Nicholas arbetsmetoder och bad honom svara på några korta frågor om arbetet med de årliga rapporterna.
Nicholas: In 2004, I designed a year-end report called “Best of 04 ” that included a few numerical details about the year, like the number of postcards sent and airmiles travelled. The following year (2005), I created the first real Annual Report. This segmented the year into sections like Travel, Photography, Music and Books which I thought would be mostly of interest to friends and family. Surprisingly, the report was as popular among people who had never met me as with those who knew me intimately. As a result of increasing interest in the project, I have dedicated increasing amounts of time to documenting and charting the passage of each year.
I try to outsource as much of the data collection as possible. Services like Last.fm and netflix and flickr keep records of my music-listening, movie-renting and online photography activities, while I can gather historical temperature records from free sites on the web. For more personal data, I have to make daily recordings. For these items, I use the calendar on my computer, while for less frequent items, I maintain a spreadsheet or use the free web-based list-keeping tools at 37 signal’s backpackit.com. I had a couple maps going all through 2007 to record every street that I walked down, but besides this information, nearly everything else was poured into excel spreadsheets to enable counting and comparisons within the data.
On a daily basis, I would not have spent more than 5 or 10 minutes, but over the course of a year it adds up. To compile and design the latest report took about 2 full weeks, and required ignoring a number of clients, friends and other responsibilities.
I am continually focussed on improving the quality of the reports each year, which is an ever-increasing challenge. I collected too much information in 2007, and have developed strategies for 2008 and 2009 that will keep the reports interesting and varied.
There are a lot of projects simmering at the moment, but I need to get my head back into my professional assignments for a few months after expending so much energy recently on the Annual Report and my China travelogue, but I’m sure that something will work it’s way to the top of my to-do list before the end of the year.
Thank you Nicholas, keep up the good work!
I’m happy to respond Jim, Cheers!
Det här inlägget publicerades torsdagen den 14 februari 2008, klockan 0:50. Du kan lämna en kommentar, eller läsa mera finstilt om design. Har du några frågor? Kontakta gärna mig på jim[snabel-a]finstilt[punkt]se.
Intressant läsning! Vissa teorier jag hade stämnde men det känns ändå som massvis med jobb och tid för att sammanställa allt på ett vettigt sätt. Kanske blir lättare och lättare när man kan outsourca fler tjänster och dagliga rutiner. Tror fortfarande på att låta en GPS kan underlätta väldigt mycket. Får du tag på fler folk att intervjua så får du gärna posta fler!
Tack Jim! Mer sådant. Intervjuer FTW!