Stefan Leijon

That’s one of the questions Oakland-based programmer Eric Fischer hoped to answer with his latest mapping project.

Fischer, a mapping fanatic and artist, is used to displaying vast amounts of information in visually compelling ways. In his latest project, he manages to plot out the motion of New Yorkers using public tweets on Twitterwith geotags from May 2011 until January.

The project lays out around 10,000 geotagged tweets and 30,000 point-to-point trips in cities like New York City to plot the flow of people in terms of favored paths. In his map of NYC, seen above, there is a huge ink blot lining Broadway; as we’ve long suspected, it looks like the busy avenue is the backbone of the city.

Using a base map from OpenStreetMap, he drew out transit paths using Tweets. Movements are indicated on the geolocation of a Tweet, with an individual’s start point marked with one geotagged Tweet and ending with the next geotagged Tweet. This is what creates a mass of traffic routes.

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[click on the picture above to see the full size image]

I had to post this.
(it’s funny because it’s true..)

This video for The Climate Reality Project sheds light on the dirty secrets of dirty industries that fund phony science in order to mislead the public into thinking their products are safe. It was done by the tobacco industry, and now some of the same people are creating doubt about climate science so they can prevent meaningful action.

www.ClimateRealityProject.org

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One of the projects we worked on at Hyper Island for Ving (a major Thomas Cook travel agent in Sweden), has finally been released!

We weren’t allowed to talk about it too much prior to release according to our non disclosure agreement, but now that it’s live, you can all check it out!

The basic idea is pretty simple.
We realized that most of the comments on Ving’s facebook page were very friendly, happy, loving and sharing from all their fans.
We also realized that a lot of the questions were about destinations. How  is that hotel? What’s a good restaurant in that town etc, etc..

So out idea is based on the premise that most of Ving’s customers are very willing to share their experiences, and since the questions and comments are constantly moving and disappear from view, we decided to build an app that collects all these recommendations according to destination.

Check it out for yourselves!

It looks like they just launched it recently since it doesn’t have a ton of tips just yet, but feel free to fill it with your own tips from your past vacations.

Great way to take advantage of clever insights.

Props to CP+B and especially my old classmate Hannah Willén that was one of the designers on this one!

Big up!

8th Day – a new series of occasional posts about what I would do if I had more time.
If there were 8 days in each week.

If the week had 8 days.. I would explore street art more.

I love projects like these. A simple idea, where something that happens online takes a physical manifestation in the real world.

There are a few good examples of this in later years such as Baker Tweet, The Ariel Fashion Shoot, Stena Line – Ledighet Deluxe, and that other one that does that thing when you tweet.. You know the one..
(do you know of any good ones? – please let everyone know in the comments of this post)

This latest i came across is Sweet Tweet by ULAB (Brand communications agency, Uniform’s, research platform), where every time they get a new follower on Twitter, a clock dispenses a gumball down a long track that someone at the agency can then collect and enjoy. Every new twitter follower that triggered the event also gets sent a link to a film describing “what they did”.
(see the film below)

Awesome way to connect with the followers right when they are the most susceptible, when they have made an active, conscious decision to follow an account, to get a happy message that you triggered something in real life. To make it feel like you’ve acutally done something, however small.
Brilliant.

Please help me find more examples like these as I find them very inspiring.
(in the comments)

I came across this image the other day and it made me think of a meeting I had with the Visual Arts Copyright Society in Sweden, “BUS” (Bildkonst Upphovsrätt i Sverige), almost a year ago.

You are apparently allowed to display a picture of a work of art by one of the artists that are covered by BUS in the purpose of selling it, but once the art is sold, you have to pay a fee if you want to continue displaying it online or in any other way.

The representatives I met with was both a general representative and a legal advisor, so I thought I’d ask, mosly for curiosity’s sake, at which point (considering size and resolution), does a digital picture sieze to be a depiction of the work of art and is legally considered just to be a number of colored pixels?

I mean, if you really want to get technical and talk strictly semantics, aren’t ALL digital pictured in essence just a well arranged number of colored pixels?

I’m still waiting for an answer from BUS..
Does anybody know?

(oh yeah, by the way, the “Van Gogh” artwork above is for sale)

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The response to the announcement last week that I’m looking for work has been overwhelming, amazing, humbling, inspiring, joyful, and a whole lot of other adjectives that I could list..

It all started Monday last week with a mention on facebook and a post on this site.
Later that day I looked up a few agencies that I know I would like to work with and contacted either someone I know that works there, or someone that felt like the right person to send an application to.
The responses started flooding in.

Besides being a life altering learning experience, Hyper Island is without a doubt one of the best things I’ve done in my life.
And I now realize that I will never go without work, professional support, friends and colleagues because of it as well.

Anyway, I’ve been to a few interviews/meetings already and they all feel promising. I have a bunch more scheduled, and I’ve decided to take a month to search and go to interviews/meetings. Then take a week or two to decide on the environment where I feel I can do the best work.
Being able to even think this way and to have the ability to choose is an incredible luxury.

Thank you all for your tips, tweets, recommendations, and outpouring of support. It really feels like I have an amazing safety-net in all of you and I can’t explain how much all of you mean to me right now.

THANK YOU!