Weevmee Captures a Year in One Image
A new technology from design agency HUSH artistically weaves personal Instagram images
Leading up to new year’s eve, social media sites fill up with flipbook-like posts compiling the best of users’ years. As a more artistic option, drawing upon the colors and tones of the last 365 days, NYC-based design agency HUSH developed Weevmee; a web application that builds one custom woven image from an entire year’s worth of source material—in essence, a digital fingerprint. And while this is a one-off demonstration of the technology behind it, the applications will continue to expand with time.
In speaking with David Schwarz, a creative partner at HUSH, we were able to gather further insight on the software, and potential usage in the future. “A lot of what we did with this version one release was actually condense what we originally had envisioned and cut out the functionality that was built into it. We wanted to launch with a one-liner,” he tells CH. “We built in and conceived additional functionality that does several things, more like a tool.”
At its core, the software uses source imagery as a base material‚ slicing those images into strips and assembling them in a dynamic manner. It’s an uncanny abstraction that varies based on how active users were on Instagram. If an Instagram user posted only 20 images in 2014, the thickness of each slice broadens. Users with close to a thousand have a more elaborate artwork. Schwarz continues, for “people who get the sample size [between 150 and 250 images in 2014], there’s some weird value where they can recognize some of the images they took. It’s, ‘I remember that color. I was in the tropics. That’s the color of my apartment.'”
Further uses become an amalgamation of art and data, where Schwarz already sees three potential options: geolocation, specific time stamps (perhaps hashtag-based), and through averaging color values. “Imagine that these weaves get to be hyper-customizable. You go and get married and you have a specific time stamp from Friday evening to Sunday evening. All of a sudden you have a very specific sequence of images that create a moment.” It’s the same with location-based image captures, whether that’s every moment from your home, work or even a favorite cafe. “It’s a way of people taking ownership of what it contain,” he explains.
The image is downloadable and sharable across a variety of sites. Weevmee will also open up for sourcing material from other social media hubs. In the meantime, it presently marks a new way of summarizing an entire year—and it’s pretty good looking, too. You can build your own for free online, and continue to check the site for further developments and applications of the technology.
Images courtesy of Weevmee
