Infographic designer Nicholas Felton is best known for his project, “The Feltron Report” which spanned for ten years between 2005 and 2014. He recorded many different aspects of his life like what he ate, how much he worked vs how much he “played” as a data form biography of his life. Each year it was recorded in slightly different ways with different data.
The first year of the Feltron report was 2005. He recorded his travel such as where he visited, how many times and his airtime. He also recorded his music, reading, food and drink and photographic habits. It really is amazing how much information he had recorded but what is even more impressive is the way he visually presents it.
In 2010 after the passing of his father, Nicholas collected data from his fathers possessions such as calendars and photograph to create a Feltron report on his fathers life. Compiling all the little details such as his dearest mementos from the 81 years of his life allowed Nicholas to build a portrait of his fathers life. I think it is lovely that he was able to reflect on his fathers legacy in this way and all the charts are so detailed and informative
In 2014, the last Feltron report was published. His report looked at tracking through devices and apps. In 2014 tracking was only beginning and wasn’t evolved as much as it is today. Through this report he was able to reflect over the previous 10 years and how tracking had evolved. Back in 2005 the only website that could track personal preferences was the music app last.fm but by 2014 habits are recorded through location, heart rate, screen time and so much more. The difference over the 10 years is massive and it has changed so much more since 2014 and 2023!!
Nicholas Felton uses different type choices throughout his different yearly reports to help visualise the information he is putting across and uses different techniques and charts such as bubble visualisation and pie charts to display the data in a meaningful way that people can read and understand what it is telling them.
Something else I also didn't know about Nicholas Felton is that he created the original Facebook timeline. Since creating it, it has obviously changed quite a bit over the years however Nicholas created the world known famous concept of the timeline and create a reimagination of Facebook profiles. He introduced elements such as cover photos and design components such as colour and type to enhance the experience of using Facebook and to display peoples profile data in a way that people could easily read and understand. I think this design idea of Nicholas Felton was very impactful to Facebook at the time as it improved the usability and user experience for their users. Due to advertisements and suggested posts now, I think Facebook has slightly downgraded their experience from this as many tend to complain that they can’t even use the timeline to see their friends posts anymore due to the flurry of adverts they see.
I really like the work of Nicholas Felton and I think this will be so helpful when it comes to creating my own dashboard as he uses a range of visualisations and charts to display his data which I can take inspiration from and implement into my own work.