This past fall I spoke at the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) SATE conference at Carnegie Mellon University. SATE stands for Storytelling, Architecture, Technology and Experience — the core elements of themed entertainment — and by "themed entertainment" they mean amusement parks like Disney World and Universal Studios, among others.
Though we've been busy with client projects in the office, we've also participated in a flurry of speaking events and conferences in the last month.
In celebration of the 40th anniversary and special re-release of the famous movie that made us afraid to swim in the ocean, we present Jawsography, an interactive app that analyzes the cinematography of the 1975 film, Jaws.
This week has been filled with some exciting travel and speaking opportunities for the Fathom team. Ben teamed up with Chelsea Clinton in NYC to give a talk at Internet week, and Teri, Alex, and I spent a day in D.C. presenting our work at the World Bank Group.
Today, in collaboration with Sarah Rinaldi, we released a video documenting Open India, an interactive visualization we developed for the World Bank Group. The video was showcased at the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG). The Annual Meetings bring together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, private sector executives, and academics to discuss issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, and aid effectiveness.
There is a core pedagogical foundation here at Fathom. Whether it be through our fascination to learn new coding languages, adapt the ones we know, or critically reflect on our design work or that of others. We also love learning from our fellow colleagues in the field, as we did recently on a creative retreat with sosolimited and design I/O — more on that soon. This summer things got a bit more formal in terms of teaching and learning, for myself, and for the studio.
Today Mark and I took another trip to Harvard to speak at Beautiful Data, a two week summer institute hosted by metaLAB at Harvard University. The institute is supported by the Getty Foundation and is a workshop to help curators and historians tell stories with open art collections.
We're excited about our recent release of NikeFuel Weather Activity, a website that connects billions of 2013 Nike+ FuelBand activity data points with localized weather data. In continuation of our study of movement patterns from the 2013 year in NikeFuel, we overlaid 2013 weather data on a map of the U.S. to see how temperature, rain, and snow impact physical activity. We'd like to take this opportunity to reflect on some of the processes that went into the design and development of the site.
Mark and I just finished a talk at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Science CS 171 - Visualization course with Professor Hanspeter Pfister and Alexander Lex (Head TF). We got to share some recent projects we’ve worked on — some more in-depth than others — in order to convey our understanding of "Audience, Context, and Tools with Storytelling and Data Visualization." We fielded some interesting questions at the end. The talk should be online soon.
Today is March 20, the official first day of spring, and it almost feels like it. This winter in New England has seemed like one of the toughest in years. The cold and snow have been absolutely relentless, and I think everyone is sick of hearing about the Polar Vortex.
It ain’t over ’til it’s over. Latest personal project at Fathom, Rocky Morphology, analyzes the narrative structure of Rocky I-VI.
Fathom has been doing a lot of work for Nike in the past nine months, in particular with the Nike+ FuelBand and the NikeFuel* data.
Being home for Thanksgiving always gives me a huge sense of nostalgia. My family inevitably winds up rehashing the past, including many entertaining stories of my childhood growing up in the '80s. One story that came up again this year was about me being sick with mono in the third grade. I was home from school for over three months, though I don't really remember being all that sick during that time. I actually remember it as one of the best times of my life. I got to stay home from school, lie on our tweed-upholstered barcalounger, and watch soap operas and TV reruns all day. Although I probably missed some critical developmental education, I think it was a worthwhile trade-off for my extensive mental database of useless TV trivia and '80s pop culture knowledge.
Yesterday, Kristen Coogan, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Boston University brought her Information Design class in for a tour of our office and some Q&A. After braving the cold and long voting lines I made it in to greet them at 10:00. Ben and I gave them a brief overview of the company and showed them some of our print work up on the 3rd floor.
Ever since the spectacle that was the 2012 Summer Olympic opening ceremony, I’ve had an image of Sir David Beckham — captaining a jet boat down the river Thames delivering the Olympic torch while fireworks explode upon his arrival — as my desktop wallpaper. His face staring at me has been my daily dose of reality. It has challenged me to be a better person and shoot for excellence each and every day. I realize I can’t keep this inspiration all to myself, I need to share this majesty with the world, so you too can achieve more.
Besides becoming a father this summer, I learned a few other things about life and design. I worked as a graphic designer for ten years. Two years ago, I left my stable and profitable job to go to graduate school at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). This summer, I interned with the team at Fathom.
What’s better than typography and ragtime music? A typography game and ragtime music.