C82: Works of Nicholas Rougeux

October 5, 2023

After discovering his online restoration of John Gould’s “A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds”… I started browsing Nicholas Rougeux’s website and got utterly dazzled and lost.

I don’t know that I have the words to describe my reaction to these images of his work. There’s an immense satisfaction I feel, at both the symmetry and colors. There is a rigidity and structure to the vector shapes, but it’s the color that pulls them a bit towards the artistic. It’s phenomenal.

This image is from his reproduction of Euclid’s Elements by Oliver Byrne. I’m not smart enough to understand the actual data being presented, but I can look at the pretty shapes and colors.

The structure of this looks like beginning of a fairy tale. Which, I guess, one could argue is a decent enough definition of mathematics.

On looking at his blog section, I saw that he had a whole project dedicated to displaying Metra Card designs. How awesome is that?

I love that he had a small gap of tickets, during the pandemic. It reminded me of the last Metra card I had, before starting to work from home full time.

Small bit of trivia: I still have this card in my wallet, even now. I guess I got lazy and just kept it in there. I use the Ventra app nowadays, but the physical card serves as a kind of memento mori. Some days, I go to work as though nothing ever happened; other days, I feel like we’re still trying to get out of the pandemic.

Going back to Rougeux’s website… there’s just so much amazing work to explore. Go take a look, and go have your breath taken away. Go get lost for a while.