Justin Review 4
Screenshot conf, tools for creation, and Edward Tufte
~ May 13, 2025 ~This is the fourth issue of Justin Review.
Today, I talk about screenshot conf, tools for creation, and Edward Tufte’s book “The visual display of quantitative information”.
Screenshot Conf
I attended Screenshot Conf this past weekend. https://screenshot.arquipelago.org/
It was super fun! Really interesting speakers and a great atmosphere all around. Some particular highlights for me of the talks include:
- using bitmap images as a new primitive rather than text
- screenie, the original clipper tool in the early 2000’s
- 3d world to display screenshots as artifacts (museum of the saved image)
- creating dynamic interfaces using image (image-oriented computing)
- tiktok screenshot games (i’ve been off of tiktok this year, so I missed this trend!)
I also presented my own talk, “Designing image-based websites”. It was a really fun experience and I’m glad people came up to me after the talk to discuss their ideas relating to image-based websites. This was the first time I presented a personal project I’ve made on such a large scale (probably 50+ people in the room?), and I’m very glad I did it. Prior to this I felt like I was on the outside looking into the nyc creative tech/design community but this has made me feel more like I am a part of it.
Thanks Cristóbal and Omar for hosting this awesome event! It really motivated me to continue working on image-based websites.
Tools for creation
When creating image-based websites. I gradually evolved the efficacy of the tools I was using in order to gain a greater connection to the work I was creating.
First I started by using Figma to create bounding boxes over images. These have X,Y, width, and height properties that I manually copied into HTML in <a> tags in order to create links in my image based websites. This works for a while but eventually I realized this was way too slow and manual for me to want to continue doing.
Next, I began more directly changing the HTML via chrome devtools. I manually edited the width, height, top, and left inline CSS properties to change how my links were positioned. I could now see in real-time how my website would change with different link positions, and even interact with my website with these new changes. To save these changes though, I still had to manually go into my HTML and copy/paste the changes. In addition, it feels less natural to use these CSS properties to adjust link positions compared to Figma’s box UI.
The last iteration I took was to create my own complete tool for adding custom links to images. These links can be easily resized and moved via the bounding boxes. All I need to do to save this is to press the “save” button, and it works.
This tool is a django webserver that stores 2 models, links and images. Everytime links are updated in the UI, these models are updated in an SQL database. The UI itself is a small frontend created using vanilla javascript and hyperapp.
I think this was an interesting personal example of gradually creating more complex tools to fit my personal needs. I simply could not create more complex works such as “Justin Wall” using the figma or chrome devtools approaches due to their much slower devloops. The custom tool I made allowed me to have a more immediate connection with my work.
Edward Tufte Book
I enjoyed reading The visual display of quantitative information by Edward Tufte. It has some really interesting ideas on how data graphics should be designed.
Here are some interesting quotes I found from it.
Most principles of design should be greeted with some skepticism, for word authority can dominate our vision, and we may come to see only through the lenses of word authority rather than with our own eyes.
Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.
I also sought to design the book so as to make it self-exemplifying — that is, the physical object itself would reflect the intellectual principles advanced in the book. Publishers seemed appalled at the prospect that an author might govern design.
What is to be sought in designs for the display of information is the clear portrayal of complexity. Not the complication of the simple; rather the task of the designer is to give visual access to the subtle and the difficult — that is,
the revelation of the complex.