We came across this anonymous author on the image sharing site Imgur.com. Not divulging his real name (perhaps he didn’t want people to know about his OCD), he shared a series of designs made up of individual orders he took while working as a waiter at a fast-paced restaurant. What starts off as simple, tiny handwriting turns into a beautiful masterpiece by the end.
Take a look as we show just how he got there…
This is a typical order pad used at his restaurant…
For servers in a restaurant, this is the standard order pad used to write down food orders as they are given while at a table.
Thinking it was silly to waste paper, he decided to write his orders small…
Very small, front and back…
And he did this for a very long time…
It’s a bit difficult to make out, but you can see that there was a progression and eventual method to the order writing. He ended up dividing each sheet into three columns of roughly 80 orders a piece. It turns out, he could fit a lot of orders on a single sheet of paper.
This is the back of those same sheets…
His first design…the musical note…
Getting bored with his “serial-killer-ish” scribblings (as his co-workers described them), he decided to try writing these orders around designs. He started off simple with a negative space design originally conceived by artist Noma Bar.
On to something a little more complicated…
Impressed with how well the musical note turned out, he decided to try something that required a little more attention to detail. It was neat to see how much detail he could get with his shorthand, abbreviated, chicken scratch.
The calligraphy pen spoon…
This is another Noma Bar inspired design that he found appropriate for his restaurant work.
Adding a little color…
He decided to try something different and add color to make this iconic design. While it turned out nice, he didn’t like having to fumble around looking for a specific color while at the table.
A bigger idea comes to mind…
After seeing how much detail he could get with his small writing, he decided to try a multi-sheet silhouette of Jimi Hendrix. He didn’t know how it would turn out, but the intricate detail of Jimi’s afro seemed like a fun challenge!
More challenging than originally anticipated…
It turned out to be really challenging to do the afro at the table so most of the stray hairs ended up being drink orders that he wouldn’t normally write down.
The masterpiece…
This is the end result of about 3.5 months of orders taken at the restaurant and even includes a hidden signature.
While this work of art is complete, he has plans to do something even more elaborate in the near future. Wow, you just never know what your waiter is up to!
