Format: A Brief History Of Data Storage

Summary: A chronological tour of data storage formats from 1950 to 2010.
Software used: Maya, After Effects, Photoshop.
Format: HD 720 Duration: 2m

This animation was initially intended to be a detour from other pieces I’m working on, but ended up taking up most of my free time inbetween freelance jobs. The real issue for me was finding a good way to illustrate how much data can be contained on each format. The discrepancy between punchcards, which hold just 90 bytes, and USB flash drives which hold up to 64GB (and more soon), meant that representing this gap visually was difficult. I experimented with various different styles and abandoned a much-loved early version for the sake of the clarity of the final version.