My receipt is attached

Strava Receipts and the art of everyday things

Have you ever thought to yourself, “Wow I wish this crumpled receipt in my pocket had my Strava data?” You’re in luck.

This week, I released Strava Receipts, a (free) data art feature that turns your entire Strava history into a receipt. Here’s a video of my receipt generating from my years of activity while living in New York City.

The goal of the piece was simple — create a way for people to visualize the activities they’ve logged in an area and provide some basic data insights. A receipt design is pretty universal, so the activity type, mileage, and map fit the aesthetic quite nicely.

The Art of Everyday Things

To nail the receipt aesthetic, I actually used a bunch of old receipts. I took a picture of four old receipts, edited them in Figma, added a background and drop shadow, and dropped them into my program. Working with receipt paper highlighted the subtle beauty of an often overlooked canvas that gets buried in our pockets, bags, or thrown straight in the trash.

Oftentimes, the receipt canvas is used to convey information as succinctly as possible (except in the case of a CVS receipt, they’re loooooooong). It got me wondering why more companies haven’t leveraged their receipts as a way to playfully engage their customers. Maybe only a handful of people would notice, but it’s a low-stakes way to engage them and maybe even go viral.

It also got me thinking about other ‘everyday things’ that may share a similar propensity to being made into art. A few others that come to mind include:

• Metrocards / Subway tickets

• Boarding passes

• Nutrition labels

• Coffee sleeves

• Concert tickets

I’m not sure what the perfect output for each of the above would be, but I’d like to experiment with each of them as a canvas. Boarding passes as a canvas for travel history? Coffee sleeves with my daily caffeine intake? They may not be perfect canvases for data art, but would love to see examples of other artists exploring them as well.

“The Art of Everyday Things” is a term I’ll use throughout other posts, whether the everyday thing is a canvas like a receipt or an input like your exercise data. And yes, it is definitely inspired by Don Norman’s famous book The Design of Everyday Things.

I’m curious what other artists are doing with seemingly mundane canvases and inputs. What other artwork have you seen explore the art in everyday things? What types of everyday things would you like to see explored?

P.S. — If you liked this post, let me know by leaving a like, comment, or sharing with a friend!