tldr: you can pull svg shapes out of their charts, run them through stable diffusion and get unique, artistic infographics that are still precise and accurate to the original chart. Need 1: any chart that is svg based (or I guess pngs but you do you, I prefer svgs) Need 2: Some imagen software, Stable diffusion webui makes it pretty easy. If you can blindly type commands into a terminal you can install this, and as long as you have a laptop with mildly decent VRAM (I’m doing it best on a desktop with an older NVIDA RTX 2180) https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui

I’ve been playing with Midjourney and I think it is incredible. The TLDR of that: We have sites now where you can type in a phrase and AI generates images for you based on concepts. Problem is: every dataset is biased and comes with issues. …

Over my career, I’ve had a few dumpster fire interviews, but I’ve only had one interview during an actual dumpster fire. As the photo below can confirm, this isn’t a joke. This actually happened. This was the scene outside my window in Seattle on September 23rd. Inside, I’m trying to…

Don’t forget the pieces you don’t see. Quarantine has me slightly more…vexed? At the various states of bad User Experience/Interaction patterns I continually run into. So, rather than just internalize it, I thought it could be good to write about it and explain how it could be improved. Partially case study, partially rant with teaching moments. To…

A big aspect of design are the mentors and people to look up to. Their work is inspiring and shape the movement of design. I couldn’t decide between Tufte or Bostock for a first one as they’re both incredibly connected to the current state of good Data-Visualization. Tufte is more…

Slightly simple this week, just a link to Kurzgesagt. This specific video in the Kurzgesagt series touches on some of the potential reasons why we find things aesthetically pleasing. In general the series is a prime example of illustration used for information and educational use. There’s a ton more that are just interesting but this one touched on Design the best. This series really exemplifies what we hope for in the usage of Illustration for getting across information though.

Another concept from visual design that on one hand is visual and artistic, on the other is based in clear psychological concepts and rules. Still slightly confused on the proper names/number of them but if you look into “Gestalt” you’ll find a number of topics that cover WHY visual objects…

One of the earliest books I read that related to design was Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. …

A weekly (biweekly?) email explaining some of the thoughts and process that go behind design decisions in WpA and Mya. Type Scales I came into design from Mechanical Engineering and many of the design decisions I make are based on some technical reasoning. …