Stay on the train

 "Diagrams allow us to see relationships that would not come forward in a straight list of numbers or a verbal description." (Lupton, Graphic Design)

When I first thought of this week's theme -- I had a couple ideas come to mind, but they weren't all that meaningful to me. I wrestled with a few ideas and after I read the book this week it reminded me of a centralized network theory I heard of in this youtube video. The Helinski Bus Station theory is what inspired this week's work and I mixed in with my roots in Chicago, so let's talk about that.

So, this week I created 'Stay on the train' which I created on my iPad using Procreate -- and I really just tackled it to present the Helinski Bus Station Theory in my own light.

Stay on the train

The Helinski bus station theory is that for example, you're embarking on a journey as a professional portrait photographer and each bus stop represents a year of your work as a photographer. So your third bus stop means you've been a photographer for three years of your life. You go to a gallery to show your work of three years and see others have already done that and you feel less unique, so naturally, you hop off that bus, grab a cab back to the station, and grab a different bus back at the beginning of the station. This time, you embark on a journey as a nude photographer and you go about three years in this line of work. You go to a gallery and realize you're in the same predicament -- feeling behind. The point of the Helinski Bus Station Theory is that the first three stops might feel stagnant, but if you stayed on the bus till the fourth stop, you would've landed a contract with a company, or you would've distinguished your craft and gotten noticed. Consistency is key -- stay on the bus.

So, I took this theory and tied it into the Chicago 'L' train loop in the heart of downtown for my art this week to bring the concept home and make it my own. Each train has a designated color -- they all intersect in the loop; however, after a few stops, they all go their own way. This ties into the centralized system concept for this diagram of an interconnected transportation method.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post of mine again this week -- and I encourage you to stay on your train. If you'd like to support me and help me stay on my train check out my Patreon or buy me a coffee on ko-fi. As always, my art is linked to its respective post on Instagram.

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