“LA on the Move”, our exhibition organized by Metro Art at Union Station in Los Angeles, California, opened in October and will remain on view through next year. Through larger-than-life graphics, a massive 3D map, playful character designs, and even animal sounds, we’ve created an immersive experience that asks Angelenos to see themselves reflected in the lives of coyotes, mountain lions, monarch butterflies, red-tailed hawks, and california kingsnakes.

From City Animals to Union Station

The seeds of “LA on the Move” were planted at ArtCenter College of Design, where we first encountered the City Animals class taught by Santiago Lombeyda and Ivan Cruz. “It was a topic I hadn’t really thought about before,” Jen recalls. “The interaction of humans and animals in LA County—it was super intriguing. The more we got to know the projects and the students, the more excited we became.” Then there was a chance to have an exhibition that pulled together a lot of these concepts and also showcased the student work, created in association with Metro Arts at Union Station. From there it just started rolling”.

The final projects from the City Animals class focused on speculative projects that explored how Angelenos could redesign their homes, backyards, and neighborhoods to better integrate with the natural world. Jason explains, “The projects that the students did were really about how people in LA could think about the intersection of the built environment—their homes, their yards, their backyards—with the natural world”. From there, we led two intensive workshop sessions with the students, working side by side to visualize ecological data in bold, accessible ways that were displayed in the ArtCenter student center for the following month.

From there, we were connected with Arroyos & Foothills Conservancy, a non-profit organization focused on preserving and restoring natural open spaces and wildlife habitats. They became an essential partner, sharing datasets on animal sightings, migration patterns, and habitat corridors across LA County as well as expert advice and access to Southern California’s environmental researchers.

The research process: Data meets daily life

“I think the first thing that we did, and what we always do, is begin with research,” Jen explains. “but in time, we leaned on the expertise of our friends at Arroyos & Foothills Conservancy—they were incredibly helpful. The other part, I think that’s very important, is collecting anecdotal information when you’re talking to people that live in Los Angeles about their experiences”.

For us, stepping away from the data is essential. “It’s important to step away from the facts and the figures, and start talking to people because the experience that Californians have with wildlife is completely different than a New Yorker’s,” Jen says. “You can’t just go about your business like a city dweller and ignore nature in California. It’s integrated into your day-to-day experience”.

Los Angeles, we discovered, is extraordinary in its biodiversity. Jason notes, “Los Angeles has such a unique environment. And what we found is that it’s actually one of the three areas in the world that is considered a biodiversity hotspot“. This became a cornerstone of the exhibition—LA isn’t just a city with some nature on the edges; it’s where wildness lives alongside urbanity in remarkable, sometimes precarious, ways.

Five animals, five stories

We chose to focus the exhibition on five species: coyotes, pumas (mountain lions), red-tailed hawks, california kingsnakes, and monarch butterflies. Each animal became a character in the larger narrative of LA residents navigating neighborhoods, dating scenes, commutes, and survival just like the humans around them.

“One of the first things that you drew was the coyote that says: ‘I love LA.’ That’s one of the featured images in the show,” Jason recalls. For Jen, this illustration became a statement of intent: “A human says, I love LA—and we all know this phrase—but animals live there too. What’s their role in this? So, we wanted to make sure that the animals and humans get equal time in this show”.

The personification of the animals was deliberate and humorous. Jen explains, “The more you learn about animals, how they’re mating with other animals, for instance, you think about the LA dating scene, and then you think about animals, which have some funny crossovers. As we have these neighborhoods in a city, they also have their neighborhoods.” Jason chimes in, “For example, a monarch butterfly says, ‘Hey babe, let’s overwinter in Mexico’—a line that could just as easily come from an Angeleno planning a winter getaway…” Jen adds, “And the monarch is saying like, I’ve got a really busy schedule.” Jason elaborates: “They have this multi-generational migration habit where up to five generations of butterflies will go from Central Mexico all the way up to Nova Scotia and Southern Canada and then back again. And they do this over five different generations. Even more remarkable—five generations later they’ll return to the same tree”.

The California kingsnake became another favorite. “Well, it’s not an LA Dodgers hat. Thank you very much,” Jen jokes, describing the snake’s illustrated headwear. “It’s a Los Angeles hat”. The kingsnake’s ability to live almost anywhere—from woodland to wetlands to suburban basements—made it a perfect symbol of LA’s adaptability. As we say, “you live in my backyard.”

Navigating the hard truths

While humor runs through the exhibition, we didn’t shy away from difficult realities. Rattlesnakes, for instance, posed a design challenge. “I made this drawing. When you might be on a hike, you may encounter a rattlesnake. And this is frightening, right?” Jen recalls. “There was like a discussion about making the rattlesnake so it wasn’t so intimidating, which was funny because I was like, well, a rattlesnake is intimidating and very scary, and you can’t really take animals and smooth out all the rough edges, right? Because that’s not what they are”!

The story of P-22, the famous mountain lion, underscored the fragility of human-wildlife interactions. Jason reflects, “Take the story of P-22—a famous mountain lion that was known around the Mount Wilson Observatory. And eventually, through a series of interactions with humans (and despite best intentions) he dies”. The exhibition addresses this directly, including data on rat poison’s devastating impact on mountain lions and the importance of hazing techniques—like carrying a can filled with coins—to maintain healthy boundaries.

“Even though we anthropomorphized the animals, we shouldn’t forget the fact that there are negative results of some of our interactions with the animals. We should be mindful of that”.

Making data visible and inviting

One of our core practices is taking complex datasets and transforming them into visuals that invite exploration rather than intimidation. “Part of what we do is find information and basically make it much more understandable to the general public and to ourselves,” Jen explains. “Like rat poison killing pumas, right? We made this diagram so that we have the data there, but you can just see it more clearly”.

A standout piece in the exhibition is the massive chart “Animal Species at Risk in California”, which visualizes 930 species by class and phylum, showing which are extinct, endangered, or imperiled. Working with data visualization collaborator Paul Buffa, we transformed this overwhelming dataset into the shape of a California poppy—the state’s native flower.

“If I saw this information in spreadsheets, I would be very intimidated because it’s just a lot of information,” Jen admits. “But since we put it into this California poppy, which is a native plant, it invites you over to explore it. You don’t have to look at every single detail, but it is fascinating”.

The wall also includes a Sankey diagram comparing California’s at-risk species to global standards—revealing that California has considerably more species in danger. And the bar chart showing imperiled species? “It literally towers over your head. It’s about seven and a half feet tall, so we wanted it to have a physical relation to how you encounter the data”.

The iconic title wall: Observing Union Station

The exhibition’s title wall features three illustrated characters walking across a vibrant gradient backdrop—each carrying something that subtly references animal behavior. Jen describes how these characters emerged: “We were standing in Union Station, and I could see people walking through, going from the trains to the entrance, and it gave me this idea about what kind of people would be walking through LA and walking particularly in Union Station”.

The older gentleman carries a bag of groceries, echoing how animals travel to forage and transport food. The young woman holds a bundle of flowers, referencing seed distribution—how seeds attach to animal coats or are eaten and deposited elsewhere. “All said and done, the more time you spend with the exhibition, you know every element is intentional and thought out and has a relationship to the information that we learn as we go along,” Jen explains.

The massive 3D map: Placing yourself in the data

Perhaps the most captivating element of LA on the Move is the enormous 3D map, created in collaboration with Julian Hoffmann Anton. This wasn’t just a cartographic exercise—it became a months-long process of negotiation, expansion, and refinement.

“Every project we do, we discuss a map component,” Jen says. “And sometimes we have time to do it, and sometimes we don’t because what starts as a simple map becomes very complex. It’s because a map is political. You can’t leave anyone off because they’ll notice”.

Initially, the map focused narrowly on downtown LA and Union Station. But through conversations with Metro Arts staff and community input, it expanded dramatically—eventually encompassing all of LA County and parts of Orange and San Bernardino Counties. “We were pushed and pushed on the map, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s a much more inclusive map, so when visitors come to Union Station, they can find themselves”.

In addition to showing every detail of the city, the map tracks sightings of all five featured species across the region, revealing fascinating patterns. Mountain lion sightings appear surprisingly far south of downtown; California kingsnakes cluster in parks and mountains but occasionally show up near Marina Del Rey; while coyote sightings may reflect research centers as much as actual populations.

“I’ve never seen a map of this scale, physically, of this detail,” Jason marvels. “It’s an extremely detailed 3D rendering of the entire metro area”. And because it wraps around a corner, visitors can find neighborhoods that might have been cropped out of a conventional map. Jen describes a photograph of a man pointing to the side panel: “He’s finding himself, which we wouldn’t have had in our original idea”.

Adding Sound: Activating the Space

For the first time in a Data Vandals project, we incorporated audio. “I pushed for this because we wanted to activate the space as much as possible,” Jen says. “We’re dealing with walls, and we wanted ways to expand these rectangles out”.

Visitors can hear the sounds of pumas, coyotes, and hawks. “I thought, okay, if I’m walking through Union Station, what is it like to hear some of these animals?” Jen explains. The sounds are surprising—sometimes beautiful, sometimes unsettling. Jason describes, “The mountain lion has lots of really low growls, more aggressive than a purr, and I found those to be unsettling”. Coyote calls also sound strange and a bit frightening, but these sound elements ground the exhibition in sensory reality, reminding visitors that these are not cartoons but living, breathing neighbors.

Iconic cutouts and LA signage culture

Atop each wall, we placed large cutouts of the animals lifted high on Sintra board to add height and visual drama. Jason says, “We wanted them to refer to the history of the Hollywood back lot, even the Hollywood sign itself.”

Jen reflects on LA’s distinctive signage culture: “I think the signage is very different from anything you ever really see on the East Coast; in New York we don’t have that kind of sign culture and I find it fascinating and really attractive”.

The billboard aesthetic also responds to Union Station’s architecture—a stunning 1930s Art Deco space with soaring ceilings and intricate tilework. “Union Station is so gorgeous, you want to try to do it justice. Something that iconic, you worry that whatever you do is going to be overwhelmed”. To honor the building, we photographed the tile floors and extracted colors to integrate into our palette, creating a dialogue between the historic architecture and our contemporary street-style graphics.

As the exhibition settles into its year-long run, we hope it becomes a recurring destination; a place where commuters pause for five extra minutes, where families return to discover new details, where Angelenos see their neighborhoods reflected in a 3D landscape populated by shared species.

“I just want people to enjoy it and have fun with it and see themselves in the data,” Jen says. “It’s so fun to see the different types of people, and I feel like I could draw those people and put them into the exhibition. It reflects a lot of our intentions”.

Jason hopes for depth and revisitation: “I’d love that the exhibition is very detailed; you can return to it over and over and learn something new each time that you revisit it”. And Jen adds with a laugh, “I hope it brings us back to California again and again –  we love LA “!

“LA on the Move” is on view at Union Station through 2026.

For more information: https://datavandals.com/la-on-the-move.

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The museum has several interactive exhibits. One permanent exhibit is Expedition Health ®, and it’s all about health and the human body.

At the start of the exhibit, you get a plastic swipe card. On a touchscreen monitor, you insert the card and enter in some information about yourself, then you select a virtual buddy to join you as you travel through the exhibit.

At stations throughout the exhibit, you slide in the card and interact with the station. One station takes your heart rate, one measures your height and wingspan, and another is a game to explore how well you interact with mirrored images. There’s even a Mindball game where you try to move a ball along a track with your brain waves! The stations collect your data and show you a summary of your measurements, sometimes in comparison with your buddy.

At the end of the exhibit, there’s another bank of touchscreen monitors. Here, you slide your card once more and get a printout with your personal data. Due to the interactive exhibits and the nature of the data, every visitor has their own personal experience and souvenir of their day at the museum.

This visit reminded me that when data is personalized, the audience is more likely to engage with it. You can apply this to dataviz by highlighting the metric or category most relevant to your audience to help them see themselves in the data or by offering filters in interactive dataviz that allow audience members to find themselves in the data. The incorporation of a buddy into the exhibit interaction added a peer engagement component, which also helps with engagement and understanding of data. 

If you’re looking for ways to engage your audience in your next dataviz or just some general dataviz inspiration, I recommend a trip to your local museum! 

The post REVIEW: Visit a Local Museum for Dataviz Inspiration appeared first on Nightingale.

“What if we could see a picture of the future? Imagine we could see a frame of the moment we are living right now, but many years ago. Just a picture, no explanation. What would your past self think?”

Every time I think of where I am right now, from that past perspective, it warms my heart. Through ups and downs, we’ve always had more happy and cheerful “pictures” than sad ones.

So when a client asked us to help them materialize what leaders from all over Brazil dreamt of for the country’s future, this was the feeling we wished for: more than words. The question was: how could we translate visions of a more prosperous, equal, just, sustainable Brazil into pictures?

This became the organizing principle behind Kes Summit. The event took place in a fantastic location in Bahia. It brought warm people, great weather, calm, and peace. For three days, 60 leaders from Adobe, Unilever, AB-Inbev, Thoughtworks, Google, and many other companies, discussed a better Brazil. After the event, their heads were bubbling with ideas. We had inspiring keynotes, engaging exercises, and discussions with experts on five main topics: Humanized Tech, the Future of Work, Global Trends, Social Change, and Conscious Capitalism. 

We used this opportunity to ask attendees to complete the following sentence: 

“In the future I desire for my country, I see…”

We collected everyone’s answers, and that night, with the help of MidJourney’s AI, we turned all prompts into images, transforming their visions into glimpses of the future.

AI image generators are artificial intelligence systems that, from a phrase (or a prompt), combine millions of images into new images. This may seem simple tech, but it is not. In case you haven’t heard anything about this, I have made a video on Instagram explaining what they are and how they work. You can watch it here.

The next morning, we printed the images we generated into Polaroid-style pictures, and during the wrap-up dinner, we displayed them on the main table at the hotel’s restaurant. Participants would receive a random image, read the desired future it portrayed, and the owner of the vision would come and collect it. 

The results were stunning. I wasn’t expecting the images to look so beautifully printed. Some of the prompts required fine-tuning; there is magic in finding the right words to deliver incredible outputs. Sometimes substituting a different word with the same meaning bought out an even better result. Instead of using “Brazil is not destroying the Amazon”, we would switch to a positive approach, such as “Brazil as a country that protects its rain forest.” Or when talking about “a future that is safe for all,” we would prompt “a future where children, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and people of color are safe.” We were playing the part of the designer – finding the proper visual representation for the intentions the attendees were trying to convey. I never imagined seeing these high-level executives so touched by something as trivial as turning words into pictures. I’ll try to explain what I mean in two stories that struck me. 

First, one of the invited experts – Caio Vassao, a fantastic Brazilian designer – wasn’t present to fill in his response, so we had to come up with something for him. In his keynote about complexity, he showed a slide with two pictures: an Indigenous boy in the Amazon and an Astronaut. He said they both have more in common than we do. They both know their territory well and are explorers of new spaces. By contrast, we occupy spaces with no respect for our surroundings. Caio’s talk was super inspiring, and we wanted the picture to reflect that. So we wrote a prompt for “an Indigenous boy in the Amazon collaborating with an astronaut.” But the AI did not read this as two separate things. Instead, it gave us an Indigenous boy in an astronaut suit. Caio said he had looked for that picture his entire life, and it was finally real. Although he did not ask for it, it was a pleasant surprise.

The second story is from Adriano, from AB-Inbev, who came to us, picture in hand, and asked if we changed his prompt or if we researched his life. We didn’t. We only translated his prompt into English: “A future where all children from Brazil have access to quality education and that racism is just another topic in a museum.” And then he showed us the picture, which had a small white child holding hands with two black children. As he showed it, he said: “I have two adopted kids, and they are black.” Ubiraci Pataxó, a healer from the Pataxó Indigenous Tribe, an invited speaker for the conference who was with us at the moment and added: “and that, in the middle, is you, as a child.” 

He showed us that his vision was not just a dream; it was a desire for the future of his children and a reflection of his life. And just like my husband told me, we were living the picture of the future we envisioned; we were giving these attendees a small glimpse of how mesmerizing and powerful dreams can be when materialized. The significance we attach to  them can make all the difference.

AI-generated images are ushering in a new era of creativity. In less than 12 hours we collected, organized, and transformed 60 dreams of the future into 60 stunning pictures. It took longer and required more people to translate from Portuguese to English than it did to generate images from prompts.

Artificial Intelligence systems are these windows to the collective archive of human knowledge and creation. Yes, there are many implications: ethical, legal, ownership, bias, and more gray areas of all creative-like AI systems. These implications are urgent, and necessary, and should be discussed. But AI can help us reach new heights in design, dataviz, and – why not? – art that we could only imagine previously. There are exciting possibilities in the creative combination of human imagination and a really good AI.

At the end of this experience, we classified all the prompts and re-analyzed them to create a dataviz summarizing the attendees’ ideal futures. We arranged them into three topics: Sustainable Growth, Diverse and Equal Society, and Technology and Education for Dignity. 

Would you like to live in a country where these visions were a  reality? I know I would. I hope they can inspire you to start dreaming – and creating – the future you envision today.

The post A Camera That Prints the Futures We Envision – with a Bit of Help from an AI appeared first on Nightingale.

Mindworks bills itself as both an interactive discovery center and a behavioral science lab. The venue takes advantage of optimal foot traffic via its retail storefront on Michigan Avenue, situated near public transportation and the Bean–a major tourist attraction. It’s window displays are designed to pique curiosity and invite passersby in. Visitors are greeted by a friendly “receptionist” who explains that the hands-on exhibits serve as active data collection for behavioral research. In fact, the staff are all behavioral science students and researchers from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business (the organization behind this operation). The receptionist also sets expectations for your time commitment–typically 30-to-60 minutes–and highlights the “merch” you can purchase with the points you earn for your participation.

This is not your typical research facility recruitment experience!

Giorgia Lupi fans will recognize her influence as she and her partners at Pentagram collaborated on the experience design, interactive installations, exhibition design, display system, environmental graphics, and visual identity design.

I found it both fascinating and delightful to introduce my kids to principles like choice architecture–plucked from the pages of Thaler and Sunstein’s Nudge–in such an entertaining fashion. I especially appreciated the way the creators labelled nudges around the space, which served to both make the concepts real and model transparency. Efforts like these advance data fluency, especially among non-practitioner audiences.

If you’re looking for techniques for engaging your audience and you happen to be near Chicago, make time to visit Mindworks.

Thanks to Editorial Committee member, Chuck Burke, for reviewing this piece from the first-hand perspective of a UChicago staffer!

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“A word-of-mouth conversation by a new customer leads to an almost $200 increase in restaurant sales. A five-star review on Amazon leads to approximately twenty more books sold than a one-star review. Doctors are more likely to prescribe a new drug if other doctors they know have prescribed it. People are more likely to quit smoking if their friends quit and get fatter if their friends become obese. In fact, while traditional advertising is still useful, word of mouth from everyday Joes and Janes is at least ten times more effective.”

Jonah Berger

Perhaps it’s not surprising then that, since Twitter’s emergence in 2007, social media listeners have been interested in digital network mapping. 

Mapping human connections has applications in other fields as well. During my recent summer vacation to Gloucester, Massachusetts, I explored the abandoned inland settlement of Dogtown and was fascinated to discover aerospace engineer Mark Carlotto’s book visualizing the social networks represented by the stone cellars that remain and what they suggest about the mysterious people who inhabited the area in the mid-1700s. 

In my work as an experience researcher, I often think about and explore relationships among social networks. For example, I studied the referral behavior within a local entrepreneurial support network to determine how to more efficiently serve aspiring business owners. In his new book, Mapping Affinities, Harvard University researcher Dario Rodighiero uses design to visualize the affinities that exist among scholars at universities, factoring in not only existing relationships, but also examining their potential for future collaboration. While I do not bring academic experience to my review of this book, I am convinced by Dario’s argument within it that visualizing affinities provides an incredibly valuable new means of quantifying scientific and academic practice.

“Visual mapping is the way in which insights can become observable.”
– Dario Rodighiero

Regular Nightingale readers will appreciate the historic dataviz contained in the early chapters. I was surprised to learn that today’s organizational charts can trace their roots to aristocratic family trees. Dario highlights the “impoverishment of visual language” with the chart’s evolution from one where individuals were cited to exemplify the characteristics of their ‘line’ to today’s organizational charts where individuals are anonymized by their titles and easily replaced. From there he explores how sociograms became artifacts used to represent degrees of friendship obtained via qualitative interviews and the eventual origin of network diagramming as a specific form of information architecture.

The rest of the book serves as a design and participatory research-driven ‘how-to’ for using affinity mapping in university governance. What began with the management of the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) School to aid in decision making was eventually embraced by its academic community as a mechanism for self-evaluation. I was particularly interested in seeing the process, as it was so similar to how a user experience study is run. First, community interviews were conducted, followed by early sketches and prototype development, and then experimentation to test specific elements. The way the team considered and incorporated keywords was particularly instructive. (Keyword taxonomy is a topic I’ve wrestled with in my work. It can lead down a rabbit hole and is often highly subjective.) In this case, the team used keywords as connectors (as indicated in the lead article image above, more versions available on the author’s website) in their visualization to provide additional context for understanding lab collaboration.

During foundational work, I try to establish alignment on research goals by auditing what we already know, or the ‘known knowns.’ It was interesting to see how this practice looked on the ENAC School project as the team considered their available data sources.  Academic community members had the opportunity to hold back sensitive data and to review for accuracy. They developed a form to allow the addition of external collaboration, a source that was “missing data” in the original audit. They adopted a data policy to keep private data about funding that could have engendered resentment among labs. The team exercised intention regarding data visibility, validity, and creation–going beyond data quality to develop what seemed, to me, like a potential standard for data stewardship.

Proximity is a critical component of affinity mapping. There can be trade-offs between visual distance and readability. The team factored ethical considerations into design choices to avoid the use of the map as an evaluation tool. For example, the rings around the laboratories are of a consistent thickness in order to prevent comparisons about publication quantity. I love how several distinct visualization techniques were applied collectively. The final map incorporates Sankey diagrams, clockwise orientation of lab members (the most senior occupying the 12:00 position), color-coded nodes with varying thickness of rings for academic practice, oriented in a hexagonal pattern that supports zooming in and out via orbiting satellites that represent external collaboration.

I was particularly struck by Dario’s discussion of the relationship between design and reading. They are inextricably linked. 

Further elaboration of this idea could be promising in advancing data literacy/fluency/graphicacy (and validates the reading lexicon the industry has gravitated to in describing this topic area). 

There were three distinct audiences for this visualization: the scholars, the management, and the external community. The visualization took several forms, including as a physical installation supported by a dedicated event. In order to recreate the zooming functionality of the digital viz, audiences could choose to observe from the ground or balcony level. A future walkable visualization is even under consideration! Perhaps one of the coolest aspects of this case study is that the visualization from that event was repurposed into gift bags for individual scholars, depicting their position within the map.

After finishing the book, I’ve been reflecting on potential applications of the best practices Dario shared. The power of the affinity map is in its ability to reveal potential, encourage collaboration, and foster belonging. For organizations that believe their culture IS their strategy, what could an affinity map of your organization and its surrounding community help you to better understand? What practices are hidden that, if you could see them, would open up new opportunities and offer new pathways for enthusiastic self-evaluation among your staff? What kinds of changes would a new focus on individuals and their social ties inspire? How might you use this map to engage your broader community? I highly recommend Dario’s book for experience researchers of all types, as well as designers, organizational leaders, human resources and talent management, and for anyone who would like to further develop the collaborative potential of their own social ties.

In addition to purchasing a copy of the book, available in English and French, you can also download your copy of the book for free.

The post REVIEW: Mapping Affinities by Dario Rodighiero appeared first on Nightingale.

On September 25, 2020, I attended the virtual opening of this exhibit, guest-curated by award-winning data storyteller, RJ Andrews, in collaboration with the David Rumsey Map Center and the Stanford Libraries. I also had the chance to Zoom with RJ for a preview of the exhibit. Here’s a sneak peek of what you can expect when you attend.

The goal of the exhibit was to feature David Rumsey’s extensive collection of historic data visualization, which resides in the David Rumsey Map Center at the Stanford Library. Rumsey is a digital publisher, online library builder, and software entrepreneur. He has amassed more than 150,000 maps, one of the largest private collections in the United States. This was RJ’s first such exhibition and it involved some curatorial constraints. First, to do justice to the collection required channeling the works in a specific direction, finding a narrative arc. For example, using only the Rumsey collection, it wouldn’t be possible to tell a comprehensive story about timelines, as no single institution houses all of the important works. Additionally, the prestigious university setting necessitated maintaining certain standards. Stanford wanted to avoid works that might still be in copyright, ruling out pieces published after 1924 or so.

But, as RJ learned through this process, library museums also favor a little bit of narrative “cross-contamination,” that is the infusion of some outside perspective or influences. Art historian and PhD Andrea Renner was a huge help navigating these considerations. And, while RJ anticipated a virtual launch, he designed for an eventual physical exhibition. That entailed a “fun, Tetris jigsaw”-like process with postage stamp-sized mock ups of the exhibit space to scale.

Ultimately, RJ had the latitude to tell the story he wanted to tell, that, throughout history, data visualization, “a new quantitative art,” buoyed scientific discoveries, social movements, and emerging philosophies. To meet both the design AND the storytelling challenges, RJ set out to mash up his desired narrative with what was possible within the collection. He designed for an audience who had never heard the words ‘data visualization’ before.

However, as he was writing for a university map center, he felt a bit more freedom to use map terms and “ten-dollar” words, like ‘consanguinity diagrams’ and ‘analemma.’ While RJ is an avid fan of history, he is not a historian, but rather a designer. Visitors will notice his use of “discs” throughout the exhibit to help focus attention on little features of each work that RJ finds special — flourishes that reveal design decisions made by their creators.

You really need to spend time with each of these works — to remake it. That’s the only way you can really understand it is if you try to remake it. Oh, they did this. When you try to remake it, you realize how genius it is. Because you realize how difficult it was that they did that.

— RJ Andrews

The exhibit is organized into six sections that deal with three themes: examining time, considering nature, and exploring people. The visualizations span the years 1760–1900, roughly chronologically, the latter part of which reflects a period considered by some as the Golden Age of Data Visualization, characterized by sizable investment and enviable aesthetic. At this time, data visualization popularized the idea of understanding a person’s place in the world. Interestingly, RJ illustrates a linkage among these pieces, a through line that demonstrates how the practitioners built upon each other’s techniques, advancing the craft.

Over this 150-year time period, you can see that dataviz really changes how people see the world and themselves in it. Dataviz helped to provide a more universal view of time — a more universal view of space.

— RJ Andrews

Sections one and three cover the same topic: visualizing time. At this point in history, cartography was about visualizing space. RJ explained to me that, “there is evidence of a giant geography education boom in the 19th century and it’s these maps that give people this global view of space.” Dataviz emerged from the need to fill in this other dimension of time.

As one of the exhibit opening attendees pointed out, the 19th century saw a “maniacal focus on science.” RJ dedicated section two to the then-newly emerging concept of nature; the idea that nature was distinct from mankind. Heavily influenced by geology, Darwinism, and all the discovery that raged through the 19th century, the information graphics in this section reflect the need to study, name, catalog, and understand the natural world.

In section four, RJ borrowed early 20th century textbook author Frank Wallace’s term ‘chartography’ to pay homage to the Golden Age of Data Visualization (1850–1900) — to highlight the unique artistry and craftsmanship that ceased in the early 1900s, coinciding with the beginning of World War I. It was during this time period, RJ told me, that “governments ploughed massive investments into dataviz. Teams of people worked on the visualizations. Some of their creators made small fortunes.” But, after WWI, as corporations began producing them, the works were more mechanized and the “aesthetics just get sucked out.”

The data visualizations within section five reflect what RJ referred to as “an explosion of people who think they can use dataviz to try to figure out God’s laws and march society toward a better version of itself.” Florence Nightingale was herself such a practitioner concerning research-based public health. This corresponded with the rise of social science and the philosophical concept of positivism, a philosophical system, according to the Oxford Dictionary, whereby every rationally-justifiable assertion can be scientifically verified or is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and that therefore rejects metaphysics and theism.

RJ considers section six as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement. In the exhibit launch event, he reminded visitors that data visualization was about power. Earlier in the exhibit there are examples of statecraft and governments wielding power through visualization. Here, abolitionists used dataviz to demonstrate the scale of slavery’s impact.

We wanted to do something through a social justice lens, but in such a way so as to look at the work honestly. I decided to focus on an African American story in a very particular time period, because you can see there’s a nifty through-line of handoffs from one creator to another with a half a century of census data fueling this work.

— RJ Andrews

The images depict what RJ dubs, “the handoffs in the work, they’re either collaborating in the handoffs or they’re directly influenced by each other.” He views a direct handoff from Francis Amasa Walker to Henry Gannett and from Henry Gannett to W. E. B. Du Bois, where they built upon each other’s creative techniques and subsequently, the craft evolved. In the ‘Amalgamation of the White and Black Elements,” Du Bois mimicked Gannett’s chart form in ‘Growth of the Elements of the Population,’ but Du Bois flipped the horizontal axis and blurred the boundaries of color to show his focus on the Black population. (Consider these charts set against the political backdrop of the 1850 census where the ‘mulatto’ category was added and the 1890 census where the categories of ‘quadroon’ and ‘octoaroon’ appeared, reflective of a time of national obsession with racial purity.) In considering Du Bois’s work, RJ explained to me that “the Philadelphia Negro is a technical dataviz book, a masterclass. In it, Du Bois shows that he knows all the rules — dataviz is fraught with rules—and that he can play within them. But, within a year, he goes to the Paris Expo and breaks all the rules. He went with an agenda, but I don’t believe he was trying to break the culture. I think he was trying to move it forward.”

When I asked him to pick a favorite chart from the exhibit, RJ was torn. Ultimately, he selected ‘Profiles of the Seine’ from section one. The visualization is an overlapping bar chart, published 16 years before the acknowledgement of the invention of the bar chart. It depicts a physical representation of reality, where the bars represent columns of water and the axis scale mimics the actual stick put into the water, used to measure river height.

When you study history like this you can see the antecedents to the breakthroughs. My favorites are the ones that are aesthetically perfect. You can see a confidence in their design. It’s just very impressive.

— RJ Andrews

My favorite take away from this exhibit is the notion that not only can studying history can give us creative ideas upon which to build, but it can also provide connection to a community of people motivated by a common purpose: to make sense of complexities and to inform and advance a better version of the world. In his opening presentation, RJ talked about the fact that dataviz designers are a relatively small group and largely open source. I like the idea that this sense of community can transcend time, advancing to meet the societal challenges of present and future ages.

What to Read After Your Visit to Data Visualization and the Modern Imagination:

These links are a sampling from the Q+A portion of RJ’s exhibit opening presentation sourced from among its attendees.

Historic Data Visualization: A discussion of data visualization and information design crafted before 1990.

Ben Gross’ Twitter thread containing nuggets from the exhibit launch.

The Missing Legacy of Marie Neurath: Recognizing the co-creator of the Isotype as a data visualization pioneer.

Exploring Isotype Charts: “Only An Ocean Between:” Discussing the charts in the Book Series “America & Britain” part one from the Lessons of Isotypes three-part series.

William Playfair’s “An Appeal to the Eye:” the preface to his book, Breviary.

Cruel Pies: The Inhumanity of Technical Illustrations from Applied Theory.

Nationalism and Imperialism from Bending Lines.

David Rumsey’s virtual collection.

Select reference websites and books to learn more about the history of data visualization, supplemental to the exhibit.

W.E.B. Du Bois’ Visionary Infographics Come Together for the First Time in Full Color: His pioneering team of black sociologists created data visualizations that explained institutionalized racism to the world from Smithsonian Magazine.

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