Graphic designer creates “Annual Report” on his life in 2006

Designer Nicholas Feltron has created a 13-page annual report for 2006 — offering oodles of maps and graphs outlining how he lived, what he did, and what he consumed in the last year. The design is spectacularly cool, and the concept totally cracks me up: It’s such a neat riff on the glossy corporate annual that all companies produce each year. Yet it’s also a quite interesting way to take stock of one’s life, eh? That graphic above details his drinking in a “beverage by type” pie-chart. A few other of stats that caught my eye:

Number of New York bars visited: 94

Last photo taken: Daybreak, December 31

Digital vs. Analog photo ratio: 37:1

Number of issues of the New Scientist read: 31

Animals eaten, in the “legs” subcategory: Cow, deer, horse, kangaroo, lamb, pig, rabbit

I don’t know how accurate this info is — i.e. how much of it Feltron actually rigorously collected, versus how much of it is a guesstimate — but either way it’s impressive. He’ll even email you a print copy if you email him.

Update: Felton emailed me to clarify that indeed, his data are pretty solid. As he wrote:

in response to your post, the numbers stand up to scrutiny. For example, I saved the cover of every magazine I read all year, tallied my t-mobile bills to learn how many sms I used, used last.fm to collect my itunes listening habits. The only thing that took a few minutes a day was writing down my drinking habits, which I acknowledge may be off by a few % (for comedy and accuracy’s sake).

(Thanks to Greg for this one!)


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I'm Clive Thompson, the author of Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better (Penguin Press). You can order the book now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powells, Indiebound, or through your local bookstore! I'm also a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. Email is here or ping me via the antiquated form of AOL IM (pomeranian99).

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