C82.net is a site dedicated to the personal and business works of Nicholas Rougeux. Works include inspirational fractal posters, calendars, abstract art, and web design. All art including services are available for purchase.
A big project is something special. The excitement of the unknown, watching it evolve, and trying new ideas are things I look forward to in every project. Recreating The Naturalist’s Library was no different and presented unique challenges, from an overabundance of source material to creating my first book. Background and source material William Jardine’s Library , was a series of…
Researching is like treasure hunting—following clue after clue in the hopes of finding something amazing. When I set out to create a digital edition of Daniel Updike’s Printing Types , I had no idea that I was going to spend months hunting down more than 1,200 books spanning more than 450 years but I’m glad I did. This project involved more research than I’ve ever done.…
I’ve long loved astronomy. Spending even a few seconds thinking about the wonders in the universe gives me a sense of joy. I marvel at what the scientific community has been able to learn about its inner workings from our tiny blue marble. When I stumbled upon Thomas Wright’s grand poster of his astronomical illustrations from 1742, I was immediately drawn in and thought recreating…
Org charts tend to be a rather boring affair—with their lists of names and who reports to whom—but they didn’t start out that way. One of the first in American business, is a stunning portrait of a classic institution—the New York and Erie Railroad. Drawn in 1855 and only rediscovered in recent decades, this diagram captured my attention and I finally took the time to…
Recreating Mose Harris’ color wheels from the eighteenth century seemed straightforward until it wasn’t. I’ve long admired his “prismatic” and “compound” wheels and set a small design challenge for myself to recreate them digitally. As with most projects, it took an unexpected turn, but ultimately a good one. Source material Harris first published his…
I used to have boring health. I never had more than the flu, been admitted to the hospital, and I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. In late 2023, that changed when I developed chronic nausea. The nausea started on November 20, 2023, with what I thought was nothing more than a mild upset stomach and has continued every day since, with varying intensity without any clear triggers.…
“Patience” was this project’s theme. Breathing new life into Les Liliacées and Les Roses —two of Pierre-Joseph Redouté’s most well known collections—taught me a lot about it during the 11 months this project took to complete. Simply put, Redouté’s illustrations are stunning. His attention to detail in stippling and watercolor has…
Hummingbirds are the closest living descendants of dinosaurs like the T. rex—one of many fascinating facts I learned while working on the digital edition of A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds . Gaining unexpected knowledge has to be one of the best parts about working on a project. As has become common with my digital editions, I stumbled upon the subject matter…
Fifteen years have passed since the last official update on my Metra Ticket Gallery . An update is long overdue considering the number of tickets has grown dramatically to nearly 1,400. It’s about time I gave a new one about the latest additions and improvements. During the 19 years I’ve ridden on Metra, I’ve been very fortunate to get in touch with many other collectors who have…
Unlike previous projects, I designed the poster based on Earhart’s 1892 treatise, The Color Printer before giving much thought to the design of the website. In fact, I wasn’t going to make a full digital edition but completing the poster made it so much more approachable and enjoyable. Working backwards My workflow for digital editions generally involves designing the website, building…
Architecture has repeatedly grabbed my attention since I was young—from studying it in high school and creating buildings in video games to designing websites for firms winning architectural awards. It’s fitting that my interest is piqued once again for a digital edition of one of the oldest and most well known architectural publications: Palladio’s treatise, The Four Books of…
I work best with existing material—whether that be images, ideas, spreadsheets, documentation, books, etc. That material defines the boundaries I need to create something more. When I stumble across a nice chunk of material (like a unique old book), excitement really sets in. This is what I felt when I found Nicolas Bion’s treatise on mathematical instruments from 1709. During my usual…
Way back in 2014, a Dutch manuscript about mixing watercolors from 1692 made a splash in the blogosphere, because while it was centuries old, few had given it much attention and it was such a beautifully preserved thorough account of how watercolors were mixed back then. Ever since then, I thought it had potential as a fun project but avoided creating one due to language barriers and other reasons…