route in color
Year:
2026
For:
Coursework
Tools:
Excel, Figma

For the Track Data assignment, I took inspiration from Spencer Finch’s practice of tracking color as a subjective form of perception to document the buildings along my daily walking route to school. While I initially attempted to log every building I encountered, I refined my dataset to focus exclusively on my consistent commute to evoke a clearer narrative, extracting the dominant HEX code of one to two blocks daily alongside building types, street locations, and weather conditions. This process highlighted the principles of psychogeography and Giorgia Lupi’s concept of "human data," as shifting weather, camera lenses, and my limited physical drawing tools created a gap between objective recording and subjective interpretation. To resolve the complexity of fitting this extensive dataset onto a single postcard, I abandoned earlier abstract designs in favor of a systematic grid that mirrors the Manhattan street system, organizing the blocks in descending order from 35th to 13th Street. This structured, game-like layout uses distinct symbols for building types and patterned fills for weather conditions, translating raw geographic data into a legible and engaging representation of the lived, repetitive experience of walking through the city.