Update ahhhhhhhhhhhhh update

I haven't been updating this much, to be honest I don't really see the need; I don't do much, and what I do do is stuff I've already posted about.

However, I do have some stuff to update.

First of all, I'm still doing this F1 project (which I must have mentioned?). I lost heart after I realised just how huge it is... I mean, imagine this: There are 493 teams, 800 drivers, 67 circuits, 73 engine manufacturers, 173 car manufacturers (which have at least one car each, Ferrari has in excess of 60 by itself, more recent (since the 80's or so) have at least one new car every year) and 820 events.

I won't explain exactly what the maths are behind all that (because if I'm honest, I have no idea what they are) but it means I have to write a lot, and when I say 'a lot', I mean a lot.

So I took a break for a while. I applied to the RCA nearly as soon as possible (early December), didn't do much after that, prepared my portfolio and delivered it to the College in January, sat around for a while, then decided to get back to my F1 project, which is just as well, and I'll explain why in a second.

I won't explain the work process which followed, though, because it's long and boring, but I worked quite hard for a while. Then I got an email from the RCA at the end of February saying I had an interview on the 9th of March, and that they wanted to see what I've been working on since applying, so I made a 'presentation' of my F1 project, which was really screenshots of all the lists I had been digitally 'hand' writing up until then.

Then I had the interview, it went ok, I don't want to say much more than that though, other than that it was far more relaxed than I'd expected (or had been made to expect, anyway). I'll find out on the 31st.

About two days ago, though, I found some software to make my own typeface, which I promptly did. I've saved myself so much time I think I'm allowed to take some time off, so I am (even though I've taken plenty of time off already).

I got blogged

So yeah, its not quite as good as being discovered but I emailed Neal Levene, the author of Simple Complexity, an awesome infographics blog kind of like Information Aesthetics only more art/design oriented rather than straight data visualisation; in other words he covers things like literature and film-based infographics as well as those based on data to do with, for example, Barack Obama's foreign policies. In other words, its more my cup of tea (even though I don't generally drink tea) than Information Aesthetics is.

Anyway, I digressed so far just then I forgot where I was. So I emailed him one night regarding this post and told him about my work, this was at about 5.30am on Saturday I think, he got back to me on Monday saying my work would be posted on his blog today (Tuesday 17/11/09), so here it is! I'm quite excited.

Also I guess I should post the flickr'd jpegs of the posters from my uni projects here just in case.

Howl (for Carl Solomon)

2001: A Space Odyssey

24fps

Robotting

Given that the F1 project I've been doing is a bit like pissing in the wind (the statistics I've been collecting will all need updating at the end of the season), I've put it on hold until November, giving me this month to work on a few other projects.

I've been making a robot alongside the F1 thing, mainly doing bits and pieces to it when I get bored of making spreadsheets that would be bigger than me if they were people. Think of it as a mix between the Terminator and Bob Ross, or a giant etch-a-sketch... I think it's almost finished now, I've done a lot of work to optimise it so its changed from basically a car with a pen on a motorised stick into a pen on a conveyor belt on a stick which is suspended from a drawing board with motors, so it should be a lot lighter than it was. I would be keeping a photographic diary of it but I can't be arsed so I haven't.

Another project in the planning stages is a collaboration which is going to be huge, lit up and colourful, but infographic and maybe interactive too, I'm very excited about it though which means you should be too, damn it.

And the third project is not a lot more than a brief, half-joking discussion. The collaborator on that one has a full time job with stupid hours, no internet connection and no phone signal... Not the most ideal situation so far.

So yeah, that's basically what I'm doing these days.

I'm not that surprised this would happen, but

I'm a bit too busy at the moment to blog all that much, let alone on two blogs, so for now I've been mainly posting at All Your Base Are Belong To Us since that's read by far more people than this is.

Don't worry, though, after I'm done with this stuff (I'm guessing I'll be particularly busy until the end of January as that's the deadline for any RCA applications...) I'll possibly be more active. Also we'll hopefully have fixed the internet here so I won't have to refresh the page a million times for it to load enough so the buttons and forms and whatever all work.

Yeah.

(p.s. the default leading is terrible...)

Morning all,

So I finally got a blog, what am I, 3, 4 years late?

Expect to see/read me talking about information design, interaction design, graphic design, typefaces (yeah, this is in Arial because Helvetica isn't an option, I'm bleeding inside) and probably my work as well. Oh and books, other stuff and things that just make me laugh.

Cheers,

Neema

p.s. I might even do some posts in Webdings, who knows?