Last week I posted a very rough draft of a personal story. It is a story of my first baby’s birth. I went through several iterations and I am almost done. View photos of the baby here.
Several people wondered how I could capture all the data. I did take some notes—mental notes and paper notes. But I also snapped a few photos of the hospital monitor.
Update: Below are some of the intermediate steps I took from last week.
By the way I can’t figure out how to get the galleries how I want them. Can someone teach me the right way to do it?
This is truly amazing. I am blown away by the amount of information you laid out in such a beautiful and readable way. It feels like a well told, short novel of sorts, with several parallel plots, character development and interesting context. In this format, though, I can read it in any order that I want. Seriously great work Gavin.
As far as the galleries go, I don’t really use them so I am fairly useless. Anyone else have thoughts?
This stuff is freaking great, and nobody rocks Rounded Gotham like Gavin does. Good job on taking the time and forethought to jot down that information.
I’m lovin’ the purple and grey color scheme best, for some reason it feels more sophisticated than the pink and grey. Of course, whatever color your wife prefers then that’s the best one.
I wonder if there is something more that could be done with the “BABY ARRIVES” section of it. I can tell your trying to find a solution that feels subtle, like the rest of the layout. But I think it could be a lot of fun to do something that creates a greater focal point, because the focal point now is either “10 cm” or the map in the corner. Maybe it could be the one place you bring in a graphic/pictogram. Right now the whole thing feels like it could also be used to tell me the statistics of the financial state of the U.S., which is actually what I like about it. However, adding a little something to warm it up conceptually would go a long way. Don’t get too warm, don’t get all Martha Stewart on me.
Also, the line that connects the word “TRAVEL” to the map kinda almost intersects with that road. So, yeah, that’s a really really nitty gritty comment for you. lol.
So do you plan on printing this out as a poster? A computer desktop?
The gallery function isn’t that great if you’re not trying to post all of the images as a single gallery because that seems to be the only way to do it. You have to manually post each image as 150×150 px thumbnails. Maybe there’s a better way but I couldn’t find it for my portraits post.
Thanks for the feedback. I already incorporated some of your great ideas.
The feedback on the nitty gritty picky things is very valuable, because those are things I miss when I stare at the composition too long.
I will post some detailed crops of the whole visualization again soon.
I knew for a long time that I needed to make “baby arrives” a bigger focal point on timeline but I just had a hard time making it right. The changes I just made help, but I want to experiment with pictograms and see what happens.
I have 2 ideas for this poster.
1.) I would love to print this on very thin paper and send it out as a baby announcement.
2.) I want to create a collection of visualizations to tell my ideas and stories of 2012—like you are doing with your videos.
Any other ideas?
gavin, i replied to the wrong post… see the reply to stephen below.
Gavin, really cool. It’s come along really well and is really fun to see the additional details. My favorite is the CMYK scales for the hair color; cool touch.
Adjustments look great! I really like that you moved the map. Also changing the dilation to outlines was perfect. The CMYK diagram is a nice touch too.
Is 7/8 inch the only large numbers in grey?
Sending it out as a baby announcement would be soooo cool, your family and friends getting it would love it! If you are going to be doing the entire year it could make for a really great website.
whoops… that way suppose to be a reply to Gavin. lol.
Moving the map really improved the composition. I also made it lighter so that it wasn’t so overbearing. The outlines really helped focus on the birth event too. I couldn’t see that they needed to be adjusted until I saw it from far away. I need to look at my work from far away more often.
Thanks for the feedback on the CMYK scales. I showed it to my dad and he didn’t get it so I had to include “(black)” beneath it. I am still debating if it looks as if I am trying to hard or being too tricky.
Changes look good. I wouldn’t really bother with the “black” though. This is your interpretation of the event. Make it for you and for her someday, not for anybody else. They will enjoy it even if they don’t get everything.
Also, if you get a chance would you mind adding the old version back in so we can see a comparison of the changes? I find things like that helpful. Thanks.
Oh, also the gallery view isn’t ideal. I’ve used it before. You have to have all the images loaded into your post’s gallery (uploaded and info saved), and then insert all the images into a single gallery. I haven’t been able to get the ordering in the way I’ve wanted in the past. There are a few controls over the order in which things will show in the gallery, but aside from numbering your images and displaying them in numerical order, it’s tricky.
Simply amazing. Very well done.
Gavin, I love these! It’s fun to read. You’re especially good at emphasizing importance and beauty through simplicity. Great job Gav! You’re so talented.