Dear Data
Ratings8
Average rating3.9
Equal parts mail art, data visualization, and affectionate correspondence, Dear Data celebrates "the infinitesimal, incomplete, imperfect, yet exquisitely human details of life," in the words of Maria Popova (Brain Pickings), who introduces this charming and graphically powerful book. For one year, Giorgia Lupi, an Italian living in New York, and Stefanie Posavec, an American in London, mapped the particulars of their daily lives as a series of hand-drawn postcards they exchanged via mail weekly—small portraits as full of emotion as they are data, both mundane and magical. Dear Data reproduces in pinpoint detail the full year's set of cards, front and back, providing a remarkable portrait of two artists connected by their attention to the details of their lives—including complaints, distractions, phone addictions, physical contact, and desires. These details illuminate the lives of two remarkable young women and also inspire us to map our own lives, including specific suggestions on what data to draw and how. A captivating and unique book for designers, artists, correspondents, friends, and lovers everywhere.
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This was a fun book to read on my lunch breaks at work, as it didn't require close reading, but I could look at each page for a while, notice things and meditate on them, and then move on. Giorgia and Stefanie sent postcards to each other with hand drawn visualizations of data that they collected about themselves over the previous week. Each week the data topic changed, and topics ranged from tracking each time they thanked someone, to the times they were alone, to apps on their phones, to all the times they said goodbye.
Over the course of reading the book, you become acquainted with the different styles of the two women. Giorgia's drawings are filled with tiny details, and she often makes her visualization resemble the type of data she's tracking. Stefanie's drawings are often more blunt and expansive. Both add humourous commentary along the sides of their postcards.
I read this to try to learn something about how to do data visualization. I've read some manual-type books, but looking at an art book of data visualization put into practice was a much more pleasant way to learn.
