I am an interview. I am a dive into approachable data design.
A conversation with Stefanie Posavec and Miriam Quick, authors of ‘I am a book. I am a portal to the universe.’
On September 3, information designers Stefanie Posavec and Miriam Quick released their new book, I am a book. I am a portal to the universe. The book is, as its title suggests, not just a book. It’s also a hands-on exploration of the physical world around and within us, narrated from the point of view of the book itself. Without using any traditional forms of data visualization – no charts, and not even the word “data” – the book prompts you to interact with it as it answers questions like: How long is the DNA in one of your cells? How much will sea levels rise over the next 15 years? How loud would the sun be if sound could travel in space? (Answer: about as loud as a slam of the book’s cover.)
Part science communication, part data visualization, part activity book, I am a book doesn’t let you just sit there and read it but insists you use it to engage with the world around you.
That even means wearing it as a hat (if you want to know how much lighter you’d be at the top of a very tall mountain).
After reading – I mean, meeting – the book, I had the opportunity to chat with Stefanie, a designer and artist known for her playful approach to communicating data, and Miriam, a data journalist and researcher specializing in information visualization. We talked about the book’s origin and the process of creating it, their approach to engaging a broad audience, and advice they have for the rest of us working in data visualization.
Claire Santoro: Let’s start with some background. How did the two of you meet, and how did you end up writing a book?
Miriam Quick: Stefanie and I have known each other for 12 years, ever since my now-husband and I tried to put on a techno night at an East London venue. I asked the owner, but he said, “You can’t because we don’t know who you are, and we’ve only got 12 slots for the year. What you can do, however, is put on an art exhibition on a Sunday and invite a lot of artists, and who’s to know if you play music because the venue’s underground so no one will hear.” So we asked all our friends who were designers to be part of the exhibition, and that included Stefanie, who was a friend of a friend. She created this amazing piece visualizing the length of cassette tape required to record Kraftwerks’ album Computer World. And we did have some music that went on afterwards.
Stefanie Posavec: You were doing your PhD in music at the time, and that’s when you started to become a data researcher. We began collaborating as a design-data team after that, and over time our collaborations developed into more creative projects, like Air Transformed.
SP: The way we got to the book is … I was on maternity leave and we were sitting in a café thinking about collaborations. We started talking about a book where the book itself is the measure, based on the idea of using real-life objects to represent data. We had my baby with us as well — I feel like I need to mention that because with all the distractions I think it’s incredible that we came up with this idea. In conversation with the noisy baby underneath, the idea still felt like it had legs.
How did you come up with the idea that the book should be a “portal to the universe”? What does that mean to you?
MQ: Our working title was actually The Measuring Book because we saw the book as a measuring device. In a way, the idea of a portal comes out of that. You hold it up to the sky and see how many stars are behind it, or put it down on the ground and see how many living organisms are in the soil beneath the pages. You’re using the book as a way to explore the amazing, wonderful universe that we live in.
The book covers a tremendous range of scientific topics. How did you decide which statistics to include?
MQ: One of the things that we talked about early on was that everything in the book should be on a 1:1 scale, meaning that the size of a letter on the page or the page itself would directly represent the size of something else.
SP: The other thing we decided early on was to ban charts and traditional data visualization. So in the beginning, we just started listing how many different elements of a book you can use to measure something — the number of pages, page turns, weight, volume, thickness of a page, what the page is made of, the glue, the thread. We were trying to brainstorm as many ideas as possible. At the same time, Miriam started a list of things we thought were interesting or exciting that could map to those parameters.
MQ: It really was just a massive spreadsheet at the beginning. We grouped the parameters into length, area, weight, volume to make sure we had a good spread. Then we asked: What comes to mind when we think of these quantities? How can we come up with stories around these values that are surprising or reveal something interesting about the world?
SP: And then Miriam had to start researching to figure out what was possible.
Did anything have to be cut that you wished you could have included?
MQ: I’m quite into insects and creepy-crawlies generally, and the book being the size that it is, things that are insect-sized work well. I spent ages trying to research how high different insects can jump — could we show an insect jumping over the book? That didn’t end up working out, but we still have three moths in the book, and at some point, Stefanie had to say, “No, no more moths!”
Which came first — the physical book or the content, which is based on the book’s dimensions?
SP: In our original proposal, we set the book’s dimensions at 20 cm by 20 cm and did rough calculations based on how long our agent thought the book might be. But after we got the book deal, we really needed a dummy – a blank book with a set number of pages and a particular paper stock and cover material – to work with. All of that needed to be determined upfront, so we had to flip the typical production process on its head.
MQ: And actually, the book’s weight mattered for many of the facts we included, so we physically put it on our kitchen scales to check our calculations. We both weighed the book, our editor weighed it, our production contact weighed it, and we took the average. We were a bit obsessed with getting it completely right, but in the end you just can’t. There’s variability in the printing process, so the books will always be slightly different. In fact, we discovered that if you keep a book in a room for six months – particularly in Devon where I live, which is really damp – it will gain weight. My book has gained 15 grams. So what can you do?!
You’ve noted that the book is an experiment in engaging “the data-uninitiated or data-intimidated.” How did you approach that goal?
MQ: This is an all-ages book, and that was a very deliberate move by us. We wanted to speak to everybody, and we tried to include facts that wouldn’t be known by everybody, even if you have a bit of science education. And we tried to include some things that were a little bit mind-bending, like the spread on gravitational time dilation — if you stand the book on a table, time runs at a certain speed at the top of the page and a tiny fraction of a second slower at the bottom. Even if you know of the theory behind time relativity, you wouldn’t necessarily be aware of the consequences in a human-sized way.
SP: With my first book, Dear Data (co-authored with Giorgia Lupi), some people see the word “data” in the title and think, “That’s not for me.” With this book, Miriam and I wanted to create something accessible and friendly, so we tried to strip out the connotations of a science book or a data book. This book is showing you what’s happening in the world as you move through it, and you don’t even realize it.
How did you decide to write from the book’s perspective? Does the book’s personality mirror one or both of yours?
MQ: We decided very early on to write from the book’s perspective because if the book was to be a portal to everything, it felt natural that the book should be the one speaking. But the actual tone of voice, I think that took quite a bit of time to nail down because we didn’t want it to be too “educational.” It needed a bit of levity. We eventually realized it should be quite cheeky and mock you sometimes.
SP: Miriam wrote most of the words in the book, but I would come in like a backseat driver and say, “The book would never use this word.” I do think the book’s humor is our general humor — or a mild version of it because we had to tone it down to make it suitable for all ages!
Miriam, this is your first book, although Stefanie, you are well known for Dear Data. What was the most surprising or exciting aspect of the process?
MQ: I had no experience with publishing, so for me, learning about the different parts of a book, book design, and production was really exciting and interesting and completely new. I really enjoyed the whole process, from coming up with the proposal to submitting the final draft and watching Stefanie’s designs come together.
SP: I think this was the most intensive collaboration we’ve ever done. We made something that I don’t think either of us could have made with any other person because we were always bouncing ideas back and forth and building upon them and tweaking them and refining them. Although Miriam did most of the data and the words and I did the design, I wouldn’t even know at this point what was Miriam’s idea and what was mine.
Thinking specifically about our data viz audience, this book seems to be a call to rethink how we engage with and communicate data. How would you like to see data viz designers approach their work differently?
MQ: I’m always nervous about saying that because we did something and we experimented in this space, everyone else should do the same, but I do think it is valuable to experiment and particularly to expand your sense of how data can be communicated. There’s a whole vast pool of physical, visual, and auditory variables that can encode data, not just length and area and color.
SP: I agree. I think what can feel quite oppressive about data visualization is the sheer number of “rules” for charts. These rules are useful when people are starting out, but they can feel a bit restrictive, and it makes me sad when these restrictions make people afraid to try something new. There’s always scope for experimentation.
MQ: A lot of the data visualization rules assume that you want to communicate data accurately and precisely, which is a very good goal to have, but that isn’t the only reason you might want to communicate data. You might want to convey something that is more impressionistic or emotional. We’re not always trying to make speed limit dials. There’s a lot more you can do with data than that.
What’s next for you both?
SP: We have idea seeds for our next book! As for me, I am currently an artist in residence with People Like You, a research project in the UK looking at the impact of data personalization. I’ll be making artwork about how data scientists and analysts within personalized medicine perceive the people behind the numbers. Do they actually see people, or do they just see numbers?
MQ: And I am working with Duncan Geere on a data sonification podcast called Loud Numbers, which we’re hoping to release at the end of this year or beginning of next. You can sign up for our newsletter, where every week we explain a bit about how we’re turning data into sound.
Before we end, I have one question for the book itself. Most books prefer to sit neatly on a shelf or nightstand, but you are adamant that we wear you as a hat, drop you, lay you on the grass. Does it ever get tiring being a portal to the universe?
Book: It does, but I’m covered with durable laminate so I’m pretty hard-wearing. Being a portal to the universe is an honour, but ultimately it’s not about me: it’s about opening my readers’ eyes to the wonder already out there in the world around us. I’m just the conduit. I do draw the line at readers using me as a coaster for their drink, however. Really, people.
I am a book is available from Amazon and various UK sellers, which can be found on the book’s website.
