It seems, for some reason, that Joy Division and Radiohead – well, Thom Yorke anyway – is the most popular bands for designers and illustrators when it comes to inspiration. I can’t say how many portraits of Yorke I’ve seen in different forums and mags, but guessing at double figures wouldn’t be far off!
The question I ask myself is; can I really justify a viable existence with graphic design as a hobby and interest if I’ve never heard more than two songs from either band? And to tell you the truth, I wasn’t that inspired, either…
Well, to be fair, Joy Division do inspire good design. For some, at least.

What Peter Saville did on Unknown Pleasures is briliant!

But maybe I’m speaking too soon, as when I started writing scripts for Scriptographer, the first thing I did was a complete ripoff of Jürg Lehni‘s Faust.

I called my script Saville Raster… So, I guess I’m as guilty as everyone else!
And if that wasn’t enough. Peter Crnokrak made a nice poster showing the huge number of covers of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart which was featured in the book Data Flow that I recently bought.

That, and Similar Diversity, a project by Philipp Steinweber and Andreas Koller also featured in the book caught my eye as I really liked the arcs – or, rather, lines in hyperbolic geometry.

After a quick look at Wolfram MathWorld on how to calculate the Poincaré Hyperbolic Disk a new idea spawned in my mind.

Fortunately it’s easier to calculate the arcs when dealing with vectors instead of coordinates as they can be created using its length and angle.

My intended project, although it’s a few months off in the future, will rely heavily on these arcs to create some interesting (at least in my mind) infographics.

And as for the music? Well, there are other bands…