IronViz is done! So how was it?
June passed like a fleeting shadow! The first half on getting an idea to work on and data prep, the second half panicking about how I need a new idea! 😄
Yeah, so not very smooth.
This year’s theme “Whatever brings you JOY” has been my favorite theme so far, but that also means that it was hard to choose! Right after the theme was announced, I started making a list of ideas that I can work on.
Now, I’m not going to reveal my other ideas because I do have them in the bag for the future 😉 Stay tuned on those vizes.
But to give you a quick look at what they were related to —
➤ Music
➤ Movies
➤ Sports (tennis ;)
➤ Food (Yes, I’m a foodie. My one true love!)
➤ Video games
Did I build enough suspense? Muhuhaha 😄
So anyway, I actually went with an idea that I had for a while — related to Movies.
I started working on this idea on 13th June, but my week was packed with work and I had to take out time late at night for this. I managed to get the first part of the data easily using python. The second part, the most important one, was a pain! Even after endless google searches, I couldn’t get the information in the way I needed for my story.
I must say, I was a little worried by then. This idea was good in theory but it didn’t pan out so well practically. So on 23rd June, I realized that it is time to make a decision. I could either continue down this path or jump to a new idea. Moving to a new idea just a week before the deadline sounded risky but would I be able to get the data for my existing idea and be able to build the story? Maybe yes, but my gut feeling told me it would go down crashing.
So on 24th June, I went with my gut feeling and decided to put this on hold for now :) I would definitely get back to this once I find a way to get all the supporting data.
I went back to the list of ideas I had noted down and then took a look at the unfinished ideas that I was working on. Then it hit me! I could finally finish my viz on “My Spotify activity”.
If you have seen my work or interacted with me, you would know I’m a music lover. I can focus more when I’m listening to music.
So back to the story. On 24th June, After I was done with my office work, I opened Adobe XD and created a draft of what I wanted it to look like. I must be in a zone or something because the ideas were just following naturally to me.
My first version
I had this idea of showing how life would be if we did not have any music in it and then slowly transition to a now that we have it.
I went with my favorite font style (Lovelo), I love how this pops.
I just knew I would go with a horizontal layout for this. It seems to fit in this story. And also, you probably know this already, I love a horizontal layout.
But I didn’t want it to too wide, so decided to do it in story style which would show one point at a time.
My first draft did not have the arrow. But I don’t know if it is just me, but having a clear direction of what to click helps me.
Final end product — The Joy of Music
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Am I happy with this? I guess so. I wish I could push myself a little more but with the time I had with the second idea, I think I did alright. At the end of the day, win or learn, right? I may not win this but I did learn :)
I did try a few new things that I’m happy about.
First up is the clock design to show my listening time by the hour of the day.
Take a look at this blog by Interworks to know how it is done — https://interworks.com/blog/mgiegerich/2017/09/06/how-create-time-machine-tableau/
Next is the wave style. The new thing about this is, it is not built with two same measures, one with a reverse axis like I always used to do. The blog covers how it is done — https://vizscribbler.blogspot.com/2016/05/shot-frequency-audio-wave-chart-tableau.html
Lastly, I wanted to highlight the selected song name with a border. I wish tableau had a way to change border color dynamically. But I used a trick of mine to do this.
I hope you were able to participate this year. But if you weren’t, don’t worry about it :) Life has been difficult with work, family and responsibility and we should do what is best for us.
But you can still catch up with all the IronViz entries — https://wjsutton.github.io/ironviz2021.html
Thanks to Will Sutton, who has created this for all of us :)
Thanks for reading this! Have fun and stay safe :)
