PEN PALS
(DEAR DATA 2.0)

Sharing personal collected data with classmates across the world during COVID-19.

︎︎︎VIEW THE FULL PROJECT

DEAR DATA INSPIRATION

Information design and data visualization isn’t just excel charts and graphs - it can be an artful and emotional exploration of personal information. The project and recently published book, Dear Data, captures the postcard exchanges between two long-distance friends Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. Over fifty-two weeks, the two friends collected data on themselves and hand drew visual maps of indecision, laughter, goodbyes, clocks, and complaints.

As a part-time student in BU’s CFA Post Baccalaureate Graphic Design program, we took inspiration from Dear Data and shared and explored our personal data collection and visualization with other BU design students during the early fall of 2020. Dear Data is a great read not only for its quirky, analog visualization of data but also for its self reflectiveness and heartfelt authenticity between two friends on opposite sides of the country.  

PROCESS

Each group member was assigned to come up with one topic (i.e. activity or emotion) relevant to our daily lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. We then compiled our chosen topics and proceeded to gather our individual data for each.

Data collection covered a period of 8 days, as an attempt to get to know each other online. The goal was to find similarities or differences in our day-to-day activities and compare results.

HOW IT EVOLVED

We met several times as a group via Zoom and discussed how we wanted to share and display our data. We worked individually on our designs and convened again to compare work.

It was interesting to see our unique ways of thinking and presenting data. We then decided that design constraints needed to be established to tie everything together.

ALEXIS PERSONAL DATA

COMPILED DATA OF ALL PEN PALS

STYLE GUIDE

Given that each member has a unique visual style, design constraints were then established to keep a sense of cohesiveness intact, while still showcasing personal taste.

Among these constraints is a color palette. Six colors were chosen, and each member was assigned one color to use as a background to differentiate our work.

Another constraint to help establish uniformity throughout is the font. We chose a font that was accessible, and flexible enough to cater and suit everyone's style.

HELVETICA NEUE BOLD
HELVETICA NEUE REGULAR
HELVETICA NEUE THIN

RAW DATA