Q&A: Nicholas Felton makes personal data look amazing
Though some of his inspirations may seem unusual at first, the more Nicholas Felton tells us about his work, the more it all makes sense in our everyday lives. Which is appropriate given that what he does encompasses everyday life's tiniest details. A designer, writer, teacher, and analyst, the Brooklyn resident transforms statistics and graphs made of collated minutiae into striking, informative images, and openly shares his tools and processes with anyone who is interested. He may be best known for his gorgeous series of Annual Reports—in which he uses a year's worth of personal data as the basis for colorful, intricate designs—and user-friendly data management apps Reporter and Daytum. (You may have also seen him profiled in The Wall Street Journal, Wired, or Fast Company.) We, of course, are intrigued by what Felton does, curious to find out exactly how and—perhaps most interestingly—why he creates in this way. What he shared with us was both educational and inspiring, and certainly had us looking at numbers in a new light.
How did you first become interested in data collection?
Data collection is a means to an end for me. About 10 years ago, I discovered that I had a passion for telling stories based on data, but realized that there were not many great sources for that data. The website Last.fm could provide a detailed accounting of my music listening, but I had no other sources for high-quality personal data. To fuel my desire to examine personal stories in greater detail, I’ve had to develop new strategies and apps for data collection.
When were you inspired to transform these collections of everyday details into elaborate graphs? Why was it necessary for you to make them?
As a designer, I was searching for source material for personal projects that I could have ownership over. This search for unique content led me to my own life, and being more of a maths/science guy, this led me to try to capture it not in words, but in numbers. The success of my first experiment with this approach combined with curiosity about my own behavior has fueled their continuation.
What do you take into consideration when putting together the color palette of a piece?
I find developing color palettes really difficult. Much of the time I will simply ignore color until near the end of a project. Picking a palette up front can be useful and help move things forward quickly, but I may also tire of the initial combination if I work on it for too long. So it can be helpful to postpone that effort until the end.
Individually, I like colors that are a little unexpected, like a pure color that’s nudged off the grid, like teal cyans or coral reds. A set of colors needs to have opportunities for high and low contrast, so I can modulate the volume of elements. I also look for hues that are well-distributed, so that there are no artificial connections being made between the colors that might create false alliances among elements that are otherwise unconnected.
Have you learned much about yourself and others through creating these projects?
It’s rare that I'm surprised by the findings in the reports. The awareness I apply to recording data for the finished product tends to give me a strong sense of what the results will look like. The most interesting events are when a visualization matches my hypothesis about a behavior, as when my suspicion that I don’t go to the West Village much was perfectly illustrated in a map from 2007.
What do you think draws users to apps like Reporter and Daytum?
The simplest attraction for these apps is that people are already quantifying their lives, but don’t have great tools for tracking and wind up making lists or spreadsheets. Both Daytum and Reporter are purpose-built to support self-quantification of any activity, like running, reading, eating, traveling, mood, or whatever. There is a journaling aspect to this behavior, a reconciliation of your accomplishments that is satisfying in a different way than the individual actions. Finally, there is a dichotomy between the way we think we are and the way we are. My favorite musician is not necessarily the one I listen to the most; my favorite person may not be the one I spend the most time with. Becoming aware of these discrepancies in our identities can be both informative and fascinating.
In your design lectures and classes, like the one on SkillShare, what are some of the most important points you hope to get across?
The main point I hope to communicate is that data is a new creative material. For designers, it should be considered and incorporated in the same way that text and image have been for centuries. We’ve seen how data is transforming commerce, but I am fascinated by its applications in the arts. I've enjoyed seeing the ways that others are integrating it into art forms like fashion, music, and sculpture.
