do work, son!

Datacards! They're like herpes--always there, lingering, but you never pay them much attention until it's 3am on a Thursday morning and your datacards start flarin' up.

So I'm gonna go ahead and acknowledge facts that, yes--I have had ample time to produce these things, and yes--I do tend to let things hang around until the last minute, but I have to say I was genuinely trying not to procrastinate this go around. That being said...4am rolls around and I've got about 1/2 a data card [which JC could equate to the work of 1/4 of an architect working at about 23% during a 6 hour minute]. I'm in my room in RESA, staring at a computer screen like my 80-year-old grandpa does. A million thoughts but no ideas.



5am...a breakthrough. Thinking about sleeping as much as making datacards, I look over my progress one last time. One thing that began to beckon my attention was the timeline that I'd been developing. I started quantifying time by using tick marks to represent individual days rather than using a single line which can tend to be vague and distort the reality of the experience. The days are animated on the y-axis of the page...making 'up' and 'down' representative of 'positive' and 'negative' experiences and interactions. Individually, each line's position on the page could be considered arbitrary but when working in concert they begin to create a dynamic expression of experience. Woot woot. I began to emphasize this element of my data and was inspired to go back and rework my previous attempts.

Even though I stayed up all night working and reworking my scheme, I'm not as mentally exhausted as I have been in the past. My improved interest and confidence in my scheme made the work entertaining. Once I fooled around with Illustrator enough things really started coming together. Clipping Mask is the jam. [Ctrl + 7] if you're speed-key savvy.

Learn a lesson from Legends of the Hidden Temple. Just because time's running out and you had to backtrack a bit in the early stages doesn't mean you have to get frustrated and screw up on the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. There are only three pieces for cryin' out loud. You'll look foolish.