Nicholas Felton, of Feltron, creates complex information graphics with strong typography and silhouetted geometry. Though his portfolio features admirable work for national media, what’s most unique and curious is Felton’s personal Annual Reports. Produced each year since 2005, Felton compiles and designs an Annual Report that documents his consumption, work, travel, all to the minutest detail.
Felton now uses technology to track his consumption over the course of the year (and he even created the program Daytum for others to track their own personal statistics), which assists in tracking the most esoteric of livelihood details.
This New York Times article describes the reasoning behind Felton’s Reports:
Although this data collection started with a simple curiosity, it also helped Mr. Felton discover and monitor negatives in his life. For example, he gained a better understanding of the effects of his travel on the environment, and he found that the actual number of books he reads in a year falls short of his goals.
Each year, Mr. Felton adds a new twist to the reports. One report tracked every street he walked down in New York City. Another tracked the number of plants he killed.
The works of Mr. Felton blur the line between art and data. They are a poetic haze of information and well-designed storytelling — and of course, the discipline to collect all this information each year.
The 2009 Annual Report featured a new direction—”Each day in 2009, I asked every person with whom I had a meaningful encounter to submit a record of this meeting through an online survey. These reports form the heart of the 2009 Annual Report. From parents to old friends, to people I met for the first time, to my dentist… any time I felt that someone had discerned enough of my personality and activities, they were given a card with a URL and unique number to record their experience.”
Mr Felton asked the people he interacted with on a daily basis to fill out an online survey describing their social experience with him: What was he wearing, what did he eat, was he happy or sad? In the end, 51,445 words were submitted by hundreds of friends, co-workers and random acquaintances.
I’ve included some spreads from the Feltron Annual Reports below, but visit Felton’s website to view more of his work.
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