When we see the word data, we usually think of confusing figures collated from facts and statistics, long data sets, boring computer-generated bar graphs, and pie charts that are used in reports. It’s hard to understand and it’s just not accessible to anyone.
Giorgia Lupi understands this problem. In a talk she delivered for 99U, she shares:
“…because we are not all data scientists, most of us, many of us have no use of raw data on a spreadsheet, and so it’s only through design that we can shape meaningful experiences with this data in forms that we all can understand and engage with.”
Which is why Lupi wants to make data accessible with visual representations. Lupi finds ways to make data more understandable and in her words, humanistic. Her work as an information designer straddles the line between graphic design and data science, and the result is “a visual narrative that uses data as a lens to better understand human nature.” (Pentagram, 2019)
Lupi’s recent appointment as a new partner of Pentagram, the world’s largest independently owned design studio, is perfect considering her background. She has a master’s degree in architecture and a PhD in design. She is also the co-founder of Accurat, a data-driven research and design firm.
Aside from being visually pleasing, her works are packed with information. One such work she did was a data visualization of famous writers’ sleep habits and their literary productivity, based on interviews and biographies. Data on the authors are illustrated around their picture — take world-famous Japanese author Haruki Murakami for example. The graph shows that he wakes up at 4 a.m. while his productivity is represented by the amount of books he has published. The project’s aim was to find out if there was a correlation between the time they wake up and their productivity. For additional context, the awards they won were shown along with the length of their life to see if there’s a pattern relating to their sleep habits.
She also has a book she co-published with Stefanie Posavec, an information designer Lupi met and decided to communicate with using data-driven postcards. They traded postcards that answered personal questions about themselves and the result is their book, “Dear Data.”
Lupi closes her 99U talk with a nice reminder for all of us, “And where ultimately, instead of using data only to become more efficient, we will all use data also to become more human.”
