Analects of Confucious Poster

The Goal: Present the entire Analects of Confucious in poster form. It was created for Justin Bakse’s Computational Poster Workshop at MCAD in 2004. Our challenge involved producing a complex data structure in print form. It was to be produced computationally to avoid tedious layout tasks, using Applescript, Javascript, a database, or whatever inspires you.

Connections are linked between virtues from the Analects and the desciples who wrote them. Virtues and desciple names are color-coded to help viewers quickly find a broad understanding of the entire book.

It should be noted that this poster used an English translation. Unfortunately, the poster was lost in a studio explosion, so this 300×200 pixel image is my last piece of visual documentation. It was originally 8 x 6 feet.

The process involved finding an electronic version of the Analects of Confucious, finding keywords, and laying out all the data on a grid.

It worked like this:

1. Locate a printed reference copy at MCAD’s libary
2. Compiled the entire book into electronic text form using OCR and other online resources.
3. Cross-checked data with other sources and translations that exist.
4. Converted the entire text to XML format using clever search and replace methods.
5. Imported XML data into Adobe InDesign.
6. Applescript was used to color code cells and text appropriately.
7. Scale to size, export to PDF, and dance.
8. The final poster was printed on an Epson banner printer.

This computational approach took a lot of brain power but saved a great deal of tedious production time. Awesome!