520 Ways

SMS dialogue of the few text messages that went into arranging a first date, then the first month of a relationship afterward. Arranged over 520 lines, the format is based on a radial convergence diagram with the calendar date arranged around the outside in white, then the timestamp of each message creates an inner-ring, with the text messages themselves reading inwards from the outside, all reading anti-clockwise. The centre (zero) ring is a series of dashed lines, one for every line of dialogue, hence why it looks darker than the five and two.

The process was considerably more complicated than originally anticipated and required a set of some 600 stepped radial splines, converted to text paths and hand-stitched together, which seemed to be the only way to allow text to run across lines without being interrupted.

The A0 piece was produced in InDesign and Illustrator and printed by large format printers Onward Display using a six-colour process.