Brian Burns

On Thursday evening I went along to the Art College (UUB) to hear Nicholas Felton (@feltron) speaking at the Conor Lecture Theatre. The venue was bursting at the seams with creatives from the local industry/student body; all eager to hear what Nicholas had to say.

I’ve been following Nicholas’ work for as long as I’ve been hard-core about design (which feels like light-years by the way). The guy has an unbelievable portfolio and his bespoke way of gathering, handling and visually representing data is already legendary in design circles.

The vast amount of dedication involved in collating data for the Feltron Annual Report is reflected in the superb aesthetic qualities of the work he continues to produce, time after time.

Over the course of an hour we were treated to some wonderful examples of the projects and methodologies that Nicholas has spent the best part of a decade crafting and fine-tuning.

I particularly enjoyed listening to what Nicholas had to say about some of his early projects. Getting an insight into the standard of his work when he was around my age has not only made me green with envy but has also inspired me to up my game.

His Midas touch when it comes to the visual representation of data has resulted in collaborations with the likes of PRINT magazine, Metropolis, Esquire Magazine and New York Magazine.

He has recently been working hard on another personal project. Daytum* will provide users with a platform to begin recording data about their own lives:

Daytum.com facilitates the counting and communication of daily data. Designed and developed with Ryan Case, its simple mechanisms allow anyone to track and display any metric – from bird-watching statistics to the concerts they’ve attended. http://daytum.com

— Nicholas Felton – Mgfn.net

You can check out some more of Nicholas’ work by following the related links in the column to the right.

I’ve always been really interested in the idea of recording life’s events, however trivial they may seem. Felton’s ‘Little Monday’ project (2000) is a perfect example of seemingly meaningless data collection. Having set up a camera in the studio where he was working at the time, he recorded the events of that day; it’s nothing too exciting. Nevertheless it’s a moment trapped in time** that would otherwise have been lost forever.

Keegan Jones (@keeg) is a young but vastly experienced designer who works for a web-development studio in Texas called Alamofire. He’s probably best known on the intarwebz as a contributor (along with Virb’s Brad Smith and Ryan Sims) to the Big Noob. Keegan does an excellent job of documenting what life throws at him by posting videos of his bizarre adventures on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/keegan).

Following an eye-opening & thought provoking close to my week, I’m definitely going to be a little more proactive in my efforts to keep records of my (albeit colourless) experiences. I don’t particularly relish the thought of sitting down in 50 years time to begin writing my memoirs. It would be great if I could take a leaf out of Nicholas’ (and Keegan’s) book(s) and begin archiving my confessions as and when they happen. I have some real food for thought to munch on over the weekend.

A big thank you goes to Creative Entrepreneurs Club for supporting the event and to Web Standardistas (@standardistas) and Build (@goodonpaper) for locking horns and organising the event; also to Nicholas for taking time out to share his knowledge with us. I’m looking forward to seeing what plans Web Standardistas and Build have got up their sleeves for future events. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post Belfast is fast emerging as a creative centre of excellence that attracts the best in the game.

Mr Jamie Neely from Front has also blogged about the event. His post makes for interesting reading. C-c-check it out: www.designbyfront.com/workinprogress/.

A good friend of mine, Chris Colhoun, has also strung a few words together that are worth reading: http://chriscolhoun.com/blog/

*As I was about to post this article Nicholas tweeted that Daytum has just turned “Pro”. I’ll make sure to give it a whirl over the weekend!
**I’m beginning to sound like Dan Faraday here. Which is never a bad thing btw. I *heart* LOST.