I’m a big fan of Christoph Niemann’s Abstract City blog on the NYT. His post on the supposedly simple pleasure of sleep makes me laugh, but it also makes me think seriously about the design of joyful experiences. These graphics may be a sweet, comical way of representing subjective human experience, but they’re also a brilliant way to distill out elements of experience for any kind of designer. What I’m trying to say is that they may be created as art, but they function as a tool.

Time as an axis reveals much. I love the oscillation of the “cool pillow” — a perfect sine wave illustrating how a little peak of joy can be reached again and again from a small, sensory pleasure.

Enjoy: Good Night and Tough Luck