Observe Collect Draw!: A Visual Journal

Lupi, Giorgia; Posavec, Stefanie

ISBN 10: 1616897147 ISBN 13: 9781616897147

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, 2018

Synopsis

Discover the patterns in your everyday life in a guided visual journal.

Harness your skills of observation. Activities teach you how to document the world through colors, lines, shapes, design, and data.

Fuel your creativity. Through the lens of data, encourage yourself to notice more closely the unfolding processes of both the world and yourself. Observe, Collect, Draw! functions as a mini-course in information design, as accessible to beginners as it is engaging to seasoned info designers.

This journal is for you if you are interested in

• Self improvement
• Curious about personal data collection
• Looking to expand your creative outlets
• Experimenting with a different way of drawing

About this title

From the Author

It's always thrilling to look back on your life and see how often it's the smallest of interactions that completely change your life's direction and set you on a new path. For our project Dear Data, each week throughout a year we collected and measured different types of personal data relating to our lives and then visualized it as a drawing on a postcard which we then sent as a type of "slow data" transmission of our personalities and our days to the other person.

As we've written extensively on Medium, this personal documentary deeply changed ourselves, turned into a book that is now at its second edition, it has been exhibited around the world,and then to our incredible joy and surprise has found the most exciting home, as the original set of our cards  and our sketchbooks have been acquired as part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

But there is much more to this story, at least for us.  The most unexpected and heartwarming reward for us is how our project resonated with an incredibly wide and diverse range of people: with Dear Data we have been able for the first time in our professional lives to truly speak beyond the closed rooms of designers or data visualization practitioners. Since the project was made public, we have seen hundreds of postcards made by people who after hearing our story wanted to try the process for themselves, many seeking out their own data 'penpals' and also setting their own yearly challenges to draw their data.

We are also touched at how many young children are reading their parents' Dear Data book and are excitedly-drawing their own data. And more incredibly, teachers from grade school to university and beyond are using the Dear Data format to teach their students the world of data: an amazing (and humbling) result from what started as a side project.

This is why our second book is a visual journal that teaches a general audience how to collect and draw their own personal data. It's a guided diary to learn how to notice and record the minutiae of our lives, and how to use data as a material for our creations

If you are you interested in self-improvement, curious about personal data collection, looking to expand your creative outlets or interested in a different way of drawing THIS JOURNAL IS FOR YOU!

You will harness your skills of observation, document the world around you, discover more about yourself and your life, and unlock your creativity in data and drawings!

About the Author

Giorgia Lupi is an information designer, artist and entrepreneur.She co-founded Accurat, a data-driven design firm with offices in Milan and New York where she is the Creative Director.

After receiving her Masters in Architecture, she earned a PhD in Design at Politecnico di Milano.

Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where in 2017 she also was commissioned to create an original site-specific piece.

Her TED TALK on her Humanistic approach to Data has over one million views.

She is co-author of Dear Data and of the interactive book Observe, Collect, Draw - A Visual Journal

She recently joined MIT Media Lab as a Director's Fellow.She lives in New York.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1616897147
• ISBN 13: 9781616897147
• Binding: Diary
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 160