Are We Human | Kyron Shochat

Quantified Individuality

Poster Design & Graphics Programming

Quantified Individuality is a computer program I wrote that generates custom poster graphics for individuals based on data pulled from the given user's answers to a short survey. The project responds to the question (and book) Are We Human? by exploring the concept of individuality. By using random data and arbitrary graphics, the work critiques the concept of quantifying a human's individuality, but it does also question the nature of individuality by suggesting that it can be quantified.

These are poster design concepts from early research I did to lay the groundwork for the general design of the custom graphic template. Each section of the custom posters are formed with these line patterns. Every section has a grid of points and one root point, and lines connect every point on the grid to the root point. The lines also change in color depending on their X and Y values on the grid.

I coded this program with P5.js, a Javascript library. The program generates data from the survey such as the number of times a user typed a given letter in their responses. These data values are then used to dictate the color and shape of each quad section.

Screen Shot 2020-08-09 at 11.20.02 PM.pn

A large challenge was programming the generator in way that the posters would be different enough from one another to give each one its own unique look. This required a lot of user testing and adjusting code based on results.