My Life as a NYT Op Ed illustration (I'm doing Michael Bierut's 100 days project)

I've decided to do Michael Bierut's 100 days project.

I've always wanted to try it and last week I saw Michael talk about some of the little graphic illustrations he's done for the NYT and I wished I had done more work like that. Simple, quick, throwaway. So that's what I'll do for my 100 days.

I'll imagine my life is a NYT Op Ed and every day I'll do a little graphic illustration.

Here is one he did about saying No to the expansion of NATO (apologies for the rubbish screengrab.)

I've done a Flickr 365 and been playing with 1 Second Everyday so I reckon I'm up to the frequency.

Michael has written about the project here. Here's the brief. 

Do a design operation that you are capable of repeating every day. Do it every day between today and up to and including the last day of the project, by which time you will have done the operation one hundred times. That afternoon, each student will have up to 15 minutes to present his or her one-hundred part project to the class.

The only restrictions on the operation you choose is that it must be repeated in some form every day, and that every iteration must be documented for eventual presentation. The medium is open, as is the final form of the presentation on the 100th day.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the project changes and letting little rules emerge throughout the 100 days to help me get through. But here are my thoughts as I start.

1. I don't really need any more design work so I'll make these as quickly as possible. They'll mostly be sketches in a notebook I imagine. I'm not worrying about production quality.

2. They'll involve type. For now. But they won't all be word puns. No-one needs more of those.

3. I'm tempted to only use Knockout, it's a beautiful family and has loads of flexibility. But that contradicts number 1. We'll see.

4. I'll do a blog update roughly every 10 days.

5. Seeing as I'm not in a class I might try and engineer some presentation on the 100th day.

If you think I can do 100 brilliant graphic illustrations in 100 days based on a life that involves going to an office for 71 of those days you're insane. But I'm hoping I'll get one or two good ones. Maybe towards the end.

I started on Saturday so my 100 finishes on 6 January.

On Saturday we went to a children's Superheroes party.

 

Wish me luck.

 

Comments

[john dodds]

Good luck. May you work through the grind and reach the sun-drizzled uplands of inspiration.

[Mpsmethurst]

Good luck. I will be interested to see your results.

Thanks fo rthe tip on London Kerning poster too.