Today, data are everywhere. But what do data really mean, and how can we extract real value from them in our daily lives? In this illustrated talk at IxDA‘s Interaction’20, information designer and Pentagram partner Giorgia Lupi discusses our new data reality and “data humanism,” her unique philosophy for understanding and working with data.
Surveying her diverse work over the last decade, Lupi introduces her distinctive approach to data visualization by looking at the human side of data, and offers a look into the far-reaching applications of her work in data and design, from corporate to institutional, to personal.
Giorgia Lupi encourages creatives (and non!) to harness data as a design tool, while respecting human privacy and experience in their output.
The Human Side of Data
About Giorgia Lupi
Giorgia Lupi is an information designer whose work takes a humanistic approach to data. In her practice, she challenges the impersonality of data, designing engaging visual narratives that reconnect numbers to what they stand for: stories, people, ideas.
Lupi was born in Italy and received her Master’s Degree in architecture at Facoltà di Architettura at Università di Ferrara and her Doctorate in Design at Politecnico di Milano, where she focused on information mapping. In 2011, she co-founded Accurat, an acclaimed data-driven research, design and innovation firm with offices in Milan and New York. She joined Pentagram as a partner in 2019.
At Accurat, Lupi built rich, visually driven experiences around data for clients including IBM, Google, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Starbucks, United Nations, World Health Organization, Triennale Milano Design Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, World Economic Forum, Knight Foundation, LVMH Group, Gucci, Valentino, Target, JPMorgan Chase, Unicredit Group, Columbia University, University of California Berkeley, TED, Corriere della Sera, Scientific American, Popular Science, and Wired.
She has been honored with numerous awards, including multiple gold medals at the Kantar Information Is Beautiful Awards in 2013, 2014 and 2015, a Bronze Lion at the Cannes Festival of Creativity in 2013, and the “Lezioni di Design” Prize at Milan’s Design Week in 2016. She was nominated for the Design Museum Beazley Design of the Year in 2016. She was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2018, and recently joined MIT Media Lab as a Director’s Fellow. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on New Metrics.
Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where in 2017 she was also commissioned to create an original site-specific piece. Her work has been exhibited at the Design Museum, the Science Museum, and Somerset House in London; the Centre Pompidou in Paris; the Museum of Design in Atlanta; the New York Hall of Science and the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York; at the Triennale Design Museum and the Design Week in Milan; and at the Petach Tikva Museum of Art in Israel, among others.
She has been featured in international media including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Washington Post, NPR, CBC, BBC, Time magazine, Business Insider, Forbes, National Geographic, Scientific American, Popular Science, Wired, Flash Art, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Monocle, Print, Creative Review, Fast Company, El Pais and Corriere della Sera.
Her TED Talk on her humanistic approach to data has over one million views. She has published several books, including: Dear Data, exploring the details of daily life through hand-drawn visual data; and Observe, Collect, Draw! A Visual Journal, a guided journal for collecting visual data; and
She has been named One of “Fast Company’s” 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2018, and she recently joined MIT Media Lab as a Director’s Fellow. She is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on New Metrics.
You can follow her on Twitter
