In your class project, you will pick a collection that you own and have around the house (think books, mugs, albums, etc.) and develop your own artist toolbox for data visualization, creating unique and expressive marks and shapes that visually define the characteristics of your collection. You’ll be cataloguing your collection with an artistic flair and will end up with an abstract work of art that communicates something about your life.

The project can be broken down into 3 phases, all the while getting ideas and inspiration through generative exercises scattered throughout:

The Planning Phase: Develop the foundation of descriptive data and associated visualizations.
Data Collection Phase: Catalog our collection with the characteristics we’ve mapped.
Visualization Phase: Assign visualizations to our data to create a finished piece.

There will be an opportunity to post several parts of this class to your project page, but especially your final project and it's legend. Your ideas will be ripe for inspiration to others! The range of ideas and projects that can come out of this class should be exciting to see; there's really a lot of opportunity for individual style and creativity in this class. I'm so excited to see what you come up with!

More Resources

Pinterest board used in this class, featuring various abstract works of art to use for inspiration
Dear Data project by Giorgia Lupi & Stefanie Posavec
The Practice of Visual Storytelling - Interviews with Artists - A Skillshare Original featuring an interview with Giorgia Lupi on data design
Let’s GratiDoodle! A Joyful Approach to Building a Creative Practice - a Skillshare class to explore icon-making in depth

Sakshita Patwa

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