Giorgia Lupi
Giorgia Lupi is an information designer whose work takes a humanistic approach to data, she works with qualitative and quantative data. Lupi was born in Italy where received her Master’s Degree in architecture and she has worked for Starbucks, United Nations and World Health Organization where everyday they shape the way these clients interact with data whilst building interactive experiences for them.
Finding Humanity in Data
Her TED Talk on her humanistic approach to data has over one million views, so I decided to watch it. the talk began with talking about human data, and how data doesn’t really exist, it is only a partial abstraction of reality and it’s never the real thing. She goes on to say how data is imperfect and by collecting data doesn’t just make it less imperfect and messy.
‘Data is human’
Data is used as a design tool and Giorgia Lupi explained her process of using data and design together, instead of just looking at boring numbers and statistics Lupi’s team constantly experiment with data visualisation and possibly use it as a mediation language. They think about different ways to present data so the audience have an experience whilst analysing it. Lupi illustrated in her talk that she enjoys breaking free from the data boundaries such as bar charts, that are boring and fail to ‘tell the story of the data’.
Dear Data Project
What I found really fascinating in this talk was her 1 year long project with Stefanie Posavec called ‘Dear Data’, they asked each other the question, ‘Is it possible to get to know someone through data only?’ Below I have included some screenshots of the postcards the designers sent to each other with different codes each week. They used different designs which turned into codes that the person had to solve.
I have never seen data presented like this and I never have thought it could be so complex yet visually exciting and engaging to read and observe! The designers talked about different topics each week such as their emotions, fears and belongings to get to know each other.
There was a total of 52 postcards at the end of the year and they have been given a permanent home in MoMA in New York City and they have written 2 books about this stimulating experiment that has influenced lots of people all over the world, not only designers and people in the art industry, but teachers too!
Abstract badges
Another project she talked about was the abstract badges that were hand drawn for people at a TED talk conference. Each person at the conference was asked simple and personal questions and the data was coded and was printed onto the badges. The purpose of this project was to create conversation starters and icebreakers so people could talk about the similarities and differences on their badges! I thought this was such an insightful and intelligent project, I have never seen anything like this before.
Final thoughts
Lupi’s talk really opened my eyes that data could be emotional and not just cognitive. It can be compelling and entertaining to examine, it isn’t just boring bar charts. We are in a moment in time where we have more access to data and it’s up to us how we use it and present it. Complexity can be our friend and can invite people to spend time with the data! Giorgia Lupi taught me that we all use data to become more affective but we should use data to become more human.