#PlsFixExcel - InkingMay Season 9

As an Analytics and Product Manager for nearly two years, my days revolved around Excel—pivots, gantt charts, and formulas became second nature. But let’s face it, spending all day in the land of rows and columns can get a little... uninspiring. So, out of this spreadsheet monotony, the idea for the 9th year of #InkingMay was born: Grid Art on Excel.

InkingMay is a yearly ritual where I make an artwork everyday during my birthday month. 2025 marks the 9th season of this personal property I have created.

In a typical ProdMan way, I divided the 31 days inro different themes. Of course, I had to create a gantt chart here.

Day 1 to Day 5: Characters

Day 6 to Day 10: Famous paintings

Day 11 to Day 15: Memes

Day 16 to Day 20: Landscapes

Day 21 to day 25: Crowdsourced

Day 26 to day 31: Anime and Brithday special

Creating these in Excel was quite straightforward. I began by selecting the entire sheet using Ctrl + A, then adjusted the column width to match the row height, forming a perfect grid. With the grid in place, I crafted the artwork by filling individual cells with colors from the palette. Once all the cells were colored accordingly, the final piece of artwork came to life.

Creating this series has been so much fun, and I hope it brought a smile on your face or made you see the ordinary a little differently.

It really doesn’t take much — just a bit of curiosity and intention — to find creativity in the mundane. A used tea bag, a scribble on a napkin or Excel - they all hold potential if you’re paying attention.