Archive

Well hello. I’m Duncan, and this is “Hello from Duncan” - a newsletter I send every ten days where I talk about the work I’ve been doing, things I’ve been reading and watching, and anything else that catches my interest.

If you love it, please forward it to a friend. If you hate it, there’s an unsubscribe button at the bottom. If you just quite like it, then it’s fine to just read it and not do anything else, of course.

Let’s get started.

Hi there, I’m Duncan and this is “Hello From Duncan” - a newletter I send every ten days about what I’ve been devoting most of my brain cycles to.

This is kind of a long one, so give yourself permission to get a cup of tea, sit down in a comfortable chair, and read it slowly.

I’ve always liked Twitter bots as an artistic medium. Some of my favourites include , , , and the weird and beautiful .

Hi! I’m Duncan and this is the newsletter I send every ten days where I talk about my work and anything else that’s been catching my attention.

If you haven’t already, then you’ll want to turn on images in this email - there are some pictures of some of my plotter and visualization work, and they have no tracking code attached. Done? Okay. Let’s get started.

As a music fan of a certain age from Britain, I have a great affection for BBC 6Music - a digital radio station that plays a wonderful selection of music I already like and music that I don’t know yet.

Hi there. I’m Duncan Geere, I’m an information designer, and this is my regular newsletter - which you signed up to very long ago or not so long ago. Either is cool with me. It covers work I’ve done lately, and things that have caught my interest. If you’re not feeling it and you want to unsubscribe, then there’s a link at the bottom.

2020 was supposed to be a year of walking. I had grand plans to walk the Gotaleden, and maybe the if I was feeling brave. That didn’t happen, because I didn’t want to take public transport to/from the starts of those walks, and then my bike crash took me out for six weeks or so at the height of the summer.

Hello, and how are you? My name is Duncan, and you’re getting this email because you’ve signed up to my “Hello from Duncan” newsletter.

It works a bit like this: you get a hello every ten days, and I tell you a little bit about what I’ve been up to lately. Then you reply if you want to, and we get to have the kinds of nice conversations that we perhaps once had in person, or in the early days of social media, before all this (*gestures wildly*) happened.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Hi! Welcome to “Hello from Duncan”, a newsletter I send every ten days which covers things that have been catching my attention and things that I’ve been working on. It’s free to read, so if you enjoy it and want to support it then the best thing you can do is share it with a friend. The more the merrier, right?

The opening of Ekistics - my exhibition of pen plotter art went really well. A big collection of my friends came down, many of whom I haven’t been able to see in months, and it was great to catch up with everyone. I had forgotten how nice it is to buzz around a room chatting casually to people.

Well, that was a lovely break. I’ve just returned from a week on Björkö - one of the islands in Gothenburg’s northern archipelago. It’s only about 90 minutes’ travel from home, via two buses and a ferry, but given that my world has shrunk down to walking distance in the past few months it was wonderful to get a bit of a change of scenery.

I’m Duncan Geere, and this is “Hello From Duncan” - a newsletter I send every ten days about what I’ve been working on and what has caught my attention.

Gothenburg’s northern archipelago is quite different to the southern one. While both were heavily militarised during the Cold War, they’ve taken slightly different development paths since. The southern one is more sparsely populated, with a few settlements connected by intermittant ferries and no cars allowed. The nothern one, in contrast, has much more regular ferry (and bus) services and feels like a place where people actually live and commute to the city. I’ve spent much more time in the southern islands, so it was great to spend a week exploring the northern islands - even if it was a little too hot and sunny for my tastes.

Hi there,

I’m Duncan, and not coincidentally this is the latest issue of Hello From Duncan - a newsletter summary of what I’ve been up to and what has caught my interest over the past ten days or so.

I’m always interested in hearing reader feedback, so feel free to hit reply and tell me which bits you like most and which bits you don’t care for. I might do a “reader survey” one of these days, if I find the time. Speaking of which…

Hi! I’m Duncan, I’m an information designer, and this is the newsletter I send every ten days where I talk about what I’m working on, what’s interesting me and what I think might interest you.

This is quite a bumper issue, so let’s get started!

Why did no-one tell me about before today? It’s a 1977 book on architecture, urban design and improving the liveability of communities by architect and design theorist Christopher Alexander. It’s also .

Hello, I’m Duncan. I’m an information designer, and this is my newsletter/workblog/braindump/lifeline to the world which goes out every ten days.

My last ten days have largely been spent helping innovation thinktank Nesta write up its annual report. It has been pretty interesting - interviewing the heads of different areas of work, and putting together a summary of what they’ve done over the past year. It’s quite an impressive collection. I’ve particularly enjoyed learning about and the

Hello. I’m Duncan. I’m an information designer, and this is my personal newsletter where I write about things I’ve been working on, or thinking about.

I appreciate tremendously the space you’ve granted me in your (no doubt busy) inbox, and this is a rather long newsletter today, so let’s get straight into it.

Today I went to the hospital for the first time in my eight years in Sweden. I went early - arriving about 9.30am and after passing a barrage of questions at the entrance about my sense of smell and whether I had (was?) a pain in the neck then I was allowed into the Accident & Emergency waiting room.

Hi there, I’m Duncan and this is the newsletter I send every ten days where I talk about what I’m currently interested in and/or working on (they’re usually the same thing).

Those of you who filled out the form a couple of months back to get something in the post from me should keep an eye on your mailboxes, because I have sent them out. If you missed it all then don’t worry - it was fun so I plan to do more of this kind of thing in the future.

Shall we get started with some DRAMA?

From the middle of a thunderstorm, I’m Duncan and this is that rarest of things - a newsletter you actually signed up for. Every ten days, I write up some notes on what I’ve been working on, and what’s been interesting me. This is the latest entry in that series.

I spent the whole morning today trying to figure out why a bunch of latitude and longitude points that I was drawing weren’t going into the right places. Turns out I forgot about map projections.

Cartographers can skip this paragraph, but I’ll briefly explain what map projections are for the rest of you. Map projections are a way of accounting for the fact that the Earth is round but maps are flat - they stretch the surface of our bumpy spheroid in different ways. Some optimise for direction - making sure that if you set out in a straight line on a map you’ll go in a straight line around the Earth. Others optimise for area - making sure countries closer to the poles don’t appear larger than those at the equator. Others optimise for other things. There are lots of different projections, and new, exciting and weird ones are invented all the time.

Hello you,

I’m Duncan, I’m an information design freelancer consultant and this is my newsletter where I write a bit about what I’ve been working on or found interesting over the last ten days.

Hey folks, my name is Duncan and I’m an information designer, writer, editor, tall person, pizza-eater, and dog-owner whose newsletter you at point foolishly subscribed to. For newcomers (I love newcomers!), this is where I write about the things that have been rattling around my brain in the last ten days. If you ever feel the need to unsubscribe, there’s a link at the bottom. If you love it so much you wish you could subscribe twice, then forward an issue to a friend.

I live in Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden and I love it, but one of the few downsides is that it’s a relatively small town and so I’ve got no real professional network locally. There’s no local dataviz meet-up, and I only know one other person in town who does similar things to me.

To compensate, I take two approaches. The first is to try and participate extensively in online communities like the (brilliant) Data Visualization Society. The second is to attend conferences as much as I can, though unfortunately that tends to involve flying.

Hi folks,

I’m Duncan, an information designer based in Gothenburg, Sweden. At some point during or prior to The Ongoing Situation you signed up for this newsletter, which arrives in your inbox every ten days with a summary of what I’ve been working on and thinking about.

If this is your first newsletter, then WELCOME! You should know that I love it when people hit reply. If you’ve been around for the long haul, then you know that already, and that I’m tremendously grateful that you’re granting me a space in your increasingly crowded inbox. Thankyou.

- Duncan

Hi there. I’m Duncan, and I’m an information designer. This is my newsletter, which pops up in your life every ten days or so like a hankering for a really good pizza. Unfortunately it is not a pizza - really good or otherwise - so if you want to unsubscribe then you can do so by scrolling to the bottom.

With that out of the way, let’s begin.

At the start of the year I implemented a new habit which has been pretty positive for me. It’s a logbook. Every morning, in a physical book, I write down a list of the things I did the previous day (usually looking at my beloved to-do app, , to help).

Hi there, newsletter crew.

My name is Duncan, I’m a writer and information designer, and one day the stars aligned and you joined my mailing list. I hope that sounds familiar, but if if not then I hope you give it a chance anyway.

Lots to talk about this week, so let’s get stuck in.

Hi there!

My name is Duncan, I’m a writer and information designer, and this is my newsletter featuring notes on what I’ve been working on and what I’ve been finding interesting recently. Let’s get straight into it.

Day.... five(?) in , and I’m starting to think about how I can plot graphics that I’ve made myself, rather than things that other people have generated. I wrote about Perlin noise a few weeks back (a series of random numbers that look more “natural” than truly random numbers), but the thing about Perlin noise is that it just natural.

Hi there!

I think it’s the law now to write “I hope you’re keeping well in these strange/unprecedented/peculiar times” at the start of every email.

My name is Duncan, I’m a writer and information designer, and this is the rebooted version of my newsletter that I promised you a week or so ago, featuring some notes on what’s been interesting me of late. Feedback and “hello”s are always welcome, just hit reply.

Hey there, beloved newsletter subscribers!

My name is Duncan, I’m a data journalist, and at some point in the pre-pandemic world you signed up to get occasional emails from me. If that doesn’t sound familiar, and you never want to hear from me again, then the unsubscribe link is right here.

Have they gone? Good. It’s just us left now. So - I’ll level with you. You may recall that about a year ago, I pivoted this newsletter to be about beginnings. It went well at first but ultimately it turned out that I had less to say about beginnings than I hoped. As a result, you didn’t hear from me much and I was in a weird situation where I wanted to say hi but didn’t have a “beginning” I could hook it around without it feeling forced. So I’m dropping that concept, and going back to the old newsletter format of just saying hi every so often.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve begun running. It’s probably up to five or six by now.

At least once a year I dash for a tram or bus, end up out of breath, and think “I should really be able to run”. It seems like the kind of thing that someone in their mid thirties should be able to do. So I begin, again.

The gold standard of beginning running is the “couch to 5K programme”, affectionately known to many as C25K. It trains you, over eight weeks or so, to run five kilometres in about thirty minutes. You start with little runs of about thirty seconds alternating with walks of about a minute, and every time you run a bit more and walk a bit less, until you find yourself magically running 5K without even thinking of it.

At least that’s the theory. In practice, I’ve found that I usually ”take a pause” about week four due to leg pain and never start again. It’s easy to continue something, but hard to restart once you’ve stopped.

When the Strokes released their debut album, Is This It?, in July 2001, I was 17 years old. I couldn’t have been luckier. I was stepping into the big wide world beyond my childhood for the first time, and a musical revolution just happened to be taking place simultaneously.

Whatever you think of The Strokes and the tidal wave of indie bands that followed them, it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t a pivotal moment in music. This explosion of guitar music, combined with access to file-sharing services like Napster, a truckload of teenage emotions, and time on my hands, allowed me to go far, far down the rabbit hole of music discovery.

When I started university in September 2002, the student radio station was the first door I knocked on. That gave me access to promotional singles and albums, which hadn’t yet been released. But more importantly, I learnt a bunch of technical skills - how to work a mixing desk, how to cue songs, how to crossfade, and - most important of all - how to sequence multiple pieces of music into an experience that was at least a little greater than the sum of its parts.

By this point, I was also an enthusiastic patron of the local indie discos in Reading. The Afterdark, with its fearsome bouncer and walls that seemed perpetually covered in sweat. Po Na Na, next to the river Kennet, with its odd North African decor, and dancefloor which flooded every time the river ran high. When I heard that the Fez Club was looking for indie DJs for a downstairs room on its Monday rock night, I was first in line, and I got the gig.

In January, I began a new job. I’m now a Senior Editor at Information is Beautiful, a data visualisation studio helmed by David McCandless. It’s a small company, and we all work remotely - most from different parts of the UK but a few of us from further afield.

Those of you who’ve been following my work an increasing interest in data visualisation in the last few years. I’ve built my career in journalism, but I also like working with numbers, code and design, and dataviz lets me do many of those things at the same time.

Hi there,

My name is Duncan. This is the beginning of my new newsletter, which happens to also be named “Beginning”. You’re getting this message because at some point you signed up to receive newsletters from me.

I have always loved beginnings. They’re so full of promise. At work, I love the beginning of a new project, where the possibilities stretch out in front of you. In videogames, I love the blank, unexplored map or the newly-created RPG character. A vessel to be filled. When travelling, I love setting out, getting going, embarking, taking that first step.

This irregular newsletter will chronicle the beginnings in my life, past present and future. I will rarely mention the ongoings. I will almost never write about the endings.