Over the last couple of months my schedule has become very fragmented and chaotic. This happens at the end of every year, as clients and vendors go on vacation, and we all take a bit of a break from the routine. For several reasons, this chaos kept my work routine from being routine well into January. So: this month I’m experimenting with a new work schedule.
This schedule aims to respect both my clients’ projects and my personal time. It sets aside an hour each morning for email, phone calls, and general project scheduling (except on Mondays, when I’m donating…
As a data visualization geek, there is one dataset that has made me smile year after year for nearly a decade: the teen birth rate in Colorado. My client, Colorado Youth Matter, has been reporting on teen birth rates within the state for about ten years now, and each year they’ve shown that these rates across all ethnic groups are dropping.
For context, here’s the first chart I created for them back in 2008, showing teen birth rates in Colorado, by ethnicity, from 1991 through 2006:
Some trending downwards, especially in among Black teens, but overall rates were fairly flat.
…
It’s 9:12 on a Monday morning. They say the early bird gets the worm, but I say the lazy bird gets the best ones. That’s why I’m sitting in a comfortable chair — I’ll admit that at least it’s in my office—instead of standing up at my desk, on the phone, or checking my schedule for the day, or any number of other things that could be described as “working”.
Why?
I look at it this way: my brain simply doesn’t get up to speed until ten or eleven in the morning. It’s in the best shape of the day around…
I am a John Berger fan from way back, when I read Ways of Seeing as part of my photography studies in art school. But until recently, I hadn’t read And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos. Last night, as the snow was starting to fall around our house in Colorado, I read a poem that spoke to me, in winter:
Distance
You have filled the thermos with coffee
packed our footprints if needed
to throw into the jaws
of the untestifying
eternal snow.
Together as carpenters with hammers
we have taught the distance
how to build a roof
from the trees…
I never thought there would be this much reading. Seriously: as a graphic designer, I love the printed page — and I’m a voracious reader in my free time — but as a kid I always thought graphic designers just sat in front of a light table with scores of rapidographs and reams of tracing paper in front of them, ink smudging their percentage wheels (yes, I grew up a long time ago). I never thought books would be a tool, just an end product.
I’ve been happy (and lucky) to be working for myself (and my clients, of course)…
Alan Bucknam
Graphic Designer responsible for @Notchcode Creative. I have also been known to enjoy beer.
