Who are you, and what do you do?
I’m a data visualisation designer, developer, and researcher based in Sydney, Australia.
I like playing around with how data can be gathered, combined, and visualised in interesting ways, and particularly in areas where data, language, and culture overlap. For example I’ve done stuff like using historical crime records as a proxy for societal change, a decade’s worth of search terms to generate virtual landscapes, and the location of football clubs to map a famous sporting divide (as well as fun but pointless stuff like generating space invaders via Markov chains and an endless random output of Jack’s ‘manuscript’ from The Shining).
The People’s Republic of Couch is where I chuck my little online experiments, often mining the mundane details of my daily life (and completionist tendencies) for things like rating the ocean pools my wife and I have swum in, or tracking the days until I lose the 20 year bet I made with a mate about how capital letters would no longer be used (I lost), or my homage to Hokusai using the Stanmore Maccas sign. There’s also dragtotrash, which is my work portfolio, but mainly it just highlights my love of pastel colours and circles (and although I keep meaning to, the design and code hasn’t been updated since 2012…).
Like a lot of nerds, I also like maps, and I’ve just started a PhD looking at how mapping platforms (such as Google Maps) can shape our sense of place, based on algorithmically targeted content, such as the search results, ads, and points of interest we are shown when using the map.
What do you use to get the job done?
My setup is pretty basic. Up until a year ago, I was still using a 15-inch MacBook Pro that I’d had since 2012 (it still had a CD drive), and a small Samsung monitor. It was fine, ‘cos the bulk of what I usually do isn’t that demanding CPU-wise, and the only reason I upgraded was that it was too old to support a few programs that the uni required, so I’m now using a 13-inch 2015 MacBook Air and a 27-inch 2020 iMac (both secondhand). My phone is a Samsung Galaxy A12, and I also have a 2017 iPad (which is mainly used for checking layout and browser-based touch interactions).
And it may not fall under hardware, but I also spend a lot of time sketching and scribbling rough ideas and thoughts in various notebooks, especially at the early stages of a project.
These days I mainly just use Sketch for design, Visual Studio for the code, Sheets for any spreadsheet stuff, various browsers to test the layout and functionality, MAMP for the rare occasions I need to run stuff locally, Dropbox (and occasionally GitHub) for backup, and Cyberduck to upload the files.
For map stuff I’ll often use js libraries (do they count as software?) such as Leaflet, D3.js, and Turf.js, as well as online tools like geojson.io and mapshaper, and sometimes QGIS, depending on what’s required.
What would be your dream setup?
To be honest, my dream setup is probably less about the hardware and software, and more about the surroundings. After almost a decade as a freelancer (and now a remote student), I spend a lot of time at home working on my own, so it’s nice to be able to get up and go for a bit of a wander outside and see some greenery. This is obviously partly just procrastination, but I do genuinely find that if I’m stuck on something, a walk will often help me solve whatever design/code/concept issues I’m struggling with.