Last week Frank Bruni offended everyone with a Humanities degree who reads the New York Times by making the case for more people to study the beauty of numbers instead of the beauty of Shakespeare.

This week, the NYTimes published readers’ reactions with my woven bookcase illustration (Art Director: Alexandra Z!)

Step 1: Panic

Step 2: Research and organize notes

Step 3: Connect the dots

Step 4: Organize the dots. Start designing. Fact Check!

Step 5: Over think the design. Take a walk. Break for coffee.

Step 6: Go back to the original design. Continue fact checking. Race to deadline.

Step 7. Post-office drinks.

To publication:

The lengthy story:
This week, diddling with the Opening Remarks graphics about Americans’ perception of doing business in China.

The numbers are fairly simple: the results of 218 American companies surveyed by the  Chamber of Commerce in China from 2011 and 2012. Wanting to show how opinions dissatisfaction has grown from last year to this year and with only a dozen numbers I liked the idea of doing a slope chart but only had a small space to work with.

So I tried percentage changes, point changes, bar charts, numbers as bar charts… (The few pie charts and stacked charts seen on my pasteboard are for a second complimentary chart.)

In the end I made 8 individual slope charts and extruded them. I’m rather happy with the form—the slant of the slopes are prominent due to color and dimension and easily comparable. The more drastic the slope the more drastic the opinion change.

Stay tuned next week for more neon charts in 3-D.

THE ICON 7 CONFERENCE IS UPON US. Come for Lynda Barry, stay for salsa dancing with Edel Rodriquez.

All your favorite twitter heros are speaking there. I’ll be loitering/MCing with Nicholas Blechman.

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ICON 6 was my *first*. We ate ox with James Jean, found out how many cars fit in David Cho’s studio (answer below), rubbed suntan lotion on Josh Cochran’s back, drank a margarita in a pool with Jillian Tamaki, fell asleep while singing German karaoke with Sam Weber, and later snuggled in bed with Jessica Hische. So, basically it was the L.A. episode of the Pencil Factory sitcom.

In the lonely world that is working by yourself ICON gave me the face to face, ass to ass time that the internet just can’t duplicate.

NEW COVER NEW COVER!

Threw together this week’s BusinessWeek cover for all our friends in Europe and Asia.

Video by Emily Keegin.

This week BusinessWeek wrapped up the HOW TO issue which I can’t take much credit for at all other than I wrote this, made a few illustrations, cobbled together a graphic here and there, and modeled a full body sensory deprivation suit. It sounds like a lot but it really isn’t in context of everything else that is going on in this issue.

For what it’s worth, How To is easily one of my favorites that we’ve done.

Wrote a few things for the How To issue this week! Including, the very essential how-to-how-to-graphic with Evan Applegate. Though it’s unlikely you’ll be called upon to “plan a party while shipwrecked”or “nail an interview, nude” you should always be prepared. Simply match a tricky situation to an ordinary task and find asolution to whatever the office may throw at you. Be warned, however, that onerow involved no testing at all. We won’t tell you which (hint: we couldn’treally figure out these “pull-ups”).

The invite name drops some of our most beloved creative, graphics, and photo directors.

But not all the jokes made it.

Tickets are on sale!

9/10 illustrators say Book Review is their favorite part of the Sunday New York Times.* So you can imagine, getting a call from Nicholas Blechman to do the cover of the NYT Book Review is not a job you say “no” to.
*The other 10% claim dibs on Style for the Weddings Announcements!!!!! zOMG).

I have to admit, I am starting to wonder if being a designer/illustrator is a sign of being a control freak. I enjoy doing freelance work most when I am given an indesign file, not just a gray box to fill. AD Nicholas Blechman and I traded the cover and inside spread a few times until we were happy/out of time.

Thanks Nicholas!

Related, NB, CN and I are giving a talk at AIGA in a couple of weeks.

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