I am a book. I am a portal to the universe.

Stefanie Posavec and Miriam Quick have a new book out called I am a book. I am a portal to the universe.

I’m different to any other book around today. I am not a book of infographics. I’m an informative, interactive experience, in which the data can be touched, felt and understood, with every measurement represented on a 1:1 scale. How long is an anteater’s tongue? How tiny is the DNA in your cells? How fast is gold mined? How loud is the sun? And how many stars have been born and exploded in the time you’ve taken to read this sentence?

Using all the elements that make a book, well, a book in a completely original way, I blend playful design and data storytelling to introduce scientific concepts to a broad, all-ages readership.

Instead of using traditional visual encodings, Posavec and Quick use the actual pages of the book — the physical weight, dimensions, and texture — to represent data. You’re invited to drop the book to test gravity, snap the cover shut to hear a measure in decibels, and to run your finger across the pages as a proxy for time and distance.

A fun one for the kids and the adults. I’m sure it’ll make its way over to the US, but it looks like you can get the UK edition in a roundabout way via Amazon. Or, if you’re in Europe, you can go direct to the source.

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Create your own visual journal of data

Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec continue on their path of Dear Data with a book that you draw in: Observe, Collect, Draw!

The first section describes some of the basics of journaling with data and how you can use various visual encodings. However, the main part of the book is a journal that guides you through collection and the visual encodings that Lupi and Posavec used with their postcards. First, there’s an instruction page and then the adjacent page provides blank scales for you to sketch yourself.

Fun. It seems like a good way to jog your imagination, in case you feel like you’re stuck in a bar chart geometry funk. [Amazon link]

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Dear Data headed to MoMA’s permanent collection

Dear Data to MoMA

What started as a personal project and then turned into a book, Dear Data was a collaboration between pen pals through data. Now Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec’s work is headed to the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.

[O]ur 104 original postcards and the many sketchbooks we filled with intermediate data drawings every week have found the best possible home for years to come. They will live in the archives and catalogue of one of the world’s most prestigious institution (well, we think so, at least!), humbled by being in the presence of the dazzling company of the great masters of art of the past two centuries.

This is amazing. Congratulations to Giorgia and Stefanie.

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Dear Data, the book

Dear Data book

For a year, Stefanie Posavec and Giorgia Lupi drew data postcards and sent them to each other once a week between New York and London. Each postcard was based on data each collected during the week about their daily lives. The project is called Dear Data. Now it’s a book.

Amazon link. Get the paperback version.

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Dear Data, the book

Dear Data book

For a year, Stefanie Posavec and Giorgia Lupi drew data postcards and sent them to each other once a week between New York and London. Each postcard was based on data each collected during the week about their daily lives. The project is called Dear Data. Now it’s a book.

Amazon link. Get the paperback version.

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