For the OCR Journal #002 I created a series of designs that could potentially be used for the cover art. Following the example of the OCR Journal #001, the intent was to have each book’s cover be unique and generated from data.

The final version uses the participants in Twitter ‘conversations’ as the basis for an algorithmic bloom field. The topics used were the most popular Twitter topics for one particular week in 2016: such as Manchester United, #StateCapture, T-Rex, Maradona, Raiders, Theo Francken, #LakeShow, etc. The dominant colors in the profile pictures of those who tweeted about a certain topic were used to make blooms. Their size related to the amount of influence [aka number of followers] the user had at the time. The result was 1,000 unique layouts, each specific to a dedicated group of people.

Earlier studies also involved data from Twitter as well as The New York Times. And while these generative processes ultimately didn’t make the cut, they still produced some interesting shapes, patterns, and explorations.