…including, with Microsoft Excel.
I use Excel a lot for work. I make spreadsheets and I often make quite colourful spreadsheets (I like colour). I’ve never, however, thought of the potential Excel has for being used as a drawing tool.
Today a friend pointed me towards an article about a 73-year old Japanese man who has been using Excel for about a decade now to create art. What do you think?
Not your normal spreadsheet
I regard myself as reasonably proficient in Excel. I’m not an expert but I know how to COUNTIF without looking it up. But I don’t know how to draw in Excel.
One of my spreadsheets
Tatsuo Horiuchi chose Excel to create art because he decided that it was easier to use than any of the sophisticated design packages around or even something more simple such as Microsoft Word or Paint. I didn’t know until today that there is a ‘draw’ function in Excel. There is. I’ve had a go.
In 2006, Horiuchi entered an Excel Autopshape Art Contest (yes, such a contest really does exist). He won that contest easily and since then has exhibited his spreadsheet artwork and acquired quite a following.
The man with his art
And Tatsuo Horiuchi is not the only Excel Artist in the world. The Japanese infamous Nyan Cat from April 2011 was created in Excel.
The Japanese Meow Cat was created using Excel
My attempt at Excel Art is not a patch on Horiuchi’s. I’ve drawn an angry cat. I don’t have high hopes that he or she is going to become an Internet sensation like the Nyan cat did.
Should I enter it for next year’s Excel Autoshape Art Contest or what?
References
‘Tatsuo Horiuchi Creates Amazing Artwork Using Excel’, 6 January 2014, Amusing Planet, http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/01/tatsuo-horiuchi-creates-amazing-art.html?m=1 [last accessed 17 January 2014]