Incarceration in Real Numbers

A stark data viz illustrating mass incarceration

I thought this was a really revealing and emotionally salient data visualization. It's interesting how the feeling of exasperation was practically built into its user experience. That in itself was a clever UX strategy to evoke relevant negative emotions toward the harsh reality of the subject matter.

My Affinity Spectrum

Being consistent with the words I use when describing how much I like something has been a key aspect in finding clarity in how I judge things relative to each other. This month I made this quick mini viz to illustrate my affinity evaluation spectrum:

Not bad Love it

(B-|B|B+) (A+)

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|———————————————|———-—|-———-|

|———————————-——-| |————-|

Not for me Excellent

(C+ & under) (A-|A)

It doesn't look like much, but for me, seeing it in this format was a nice reminder that my favourite part of tracking everything that brings me joy is finding those green emeralds and blue sapphire gemstones.

Focused YouTube Time

I've been having a lot of success with finding things that spark motivation and inspiration this past month and I think it can be largely attributed to my new practice of not dividing my attention while watching educational content on Youtube.

Image saving to personal themed magazines

A routine I've come to enjoy is spending some time on Instagram and Pinterest with a morning cup of coffee. I'll scroll through and like pictures from my favourite artists and designers, but it occurred to me recently how I never actually do anything with the pictures I like. So this month I was inspired by the idea of creating for-my-eyes-only magazines by saving my fav pics to my eagle.cool app. For me, it's one thing to pin a pic or save it to an Insta album, but it's a-whole-nother enhanced gamified experience loading only my absolute favourite photos into their own mini zines. Essentially, this is just a better way for me to separate the green and blue gemstones from the rest.

Urban & Environment Design

There was a point recently when I was avoiding exploring my interest in urban design and planning, because I thought that it was impractical unless I wanted to deal with a field that seemed filled with bureaucratic obstacles. This month I learned that there is such a thing as tactical urbanism, where citizens take urban and environmental design into their own hands. This company Street Plans is a great example. I'm feeling pretty excited to explore this area some more.

Similar to architectural visualisation, I think it would be fun to design interior design renderings. My imagination is already running rampant visualizing surreal designs for kids' bedrooms.

Literature

I feel like the comic book genre is such a huge category that I have yet to explore.

Art

Note to self: how cool would it be to build dioramas like this

Linguistics

I was trying to describe an atmosphere that felt monotone-esque. and the Mad Gabs player in my mind heard a similarity between monoton-esque and monotonous. So I wonder if there's a relation between the words monotone and monotonous?