Twitter has condensed communication down to a series of small, discrete messages. Each tweet is a frozen thought, a package of information too small to be of consequence when viewed in isolation, but creating a blizzard too dense to penetrate when seen as a whole. The temporary nature of each tweet led us to consider another small yet unique object, the snowflake. We set out to try and capture this most throwaway of communication and create something beautiful and lasting.

We first designed a website that automatically turned all of the tweets with the hashtag ‘xmas’ into typographic snowflakes, and displayed them as falling digital snow. From this we could also extract individual tweets; a smart way of sending unique Christmas cards to friends and clients. The next logical step was to create a physical document of these global digital communications. With this in mind, we recorded all the Twitter messages sent on 25th December 2010. We then took the unusual route of using Processing (a programming language built to create images, animations, and interactions) to layout all 6651 tweets and tweetflake illustrations across the cloth bound tome’s pages.

Arranged in chronological order, the book becomes a work of reference. Beautiful as art, but look closer and each tweet holds its own personal sentiment. Whether serious, touching, funny, ridiculous, or just plain rude, together the messages paint an honest picture of modern-day views and values associated with the festive season.

A collaboration between:

www.icodesign.com
www.benjames.com
www.ubyubooks.com