Osserva, raccogli, disegna! | Un diario visivo

How do we measure our gratitude, our trust or our level of distraction? What do we learn about ourselves if we analyse the things we like and our habits? Mixing together examples and instructions, colourfully illustrated in detail and easy to understand, Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec explain how personal documentation can lead us to get to know ourselves, helping us better understand how data can be a tool, a lens to discover our most human side. From the clothes in our wardrobe to the many times we complain for no reason, or when we smile at people we don’t know, each piece of data about us can be analysed and can make us understand something about ourselves. The book is presented as a kind of diary that interweaves examples, drawings and cues with blank pages that can be completed by the reader.  

“Osserva, raccogli, disegna!” is an invitation to observe our everyday life in a different way and with the eyes of a data collector. This book makes information design – the graphic representation and synthesis of information and data – accessible and engaging for beginners and offers new insights even to the most experienced infographic designers.

Between September 2014 and September 2015, Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec sent each other 104 postcards in which they each wrote and illustrated facts and pieces of information to talk about their own lives, starting with simple things such as the number of times you look at your watch or take public transport. These postcards and some sketchbooks make up the “Dear Data” project and have been acquired by MoMA in New York as part of its permanent collection.