“Design is a western commodity”
One of the problems with communication and design nowadays is that too much crap is being done continuously, says Domestic Data Streamers co-founder.
It was the year 2014 when Intel said that in 2020 there would be more digitized data than stars in the known universe. But it was not necessary to wait so long. In 2016 the data already won the battle to the celestial bodies, according to what Pau García (28) and Joan Planas (30) told us when they finished their presentation in #6SCD. They are two of the founders of Domestic Data Streamer, two tailors of the design that sew data with research, art, and communication until they manage to create projects that invite you both to stop and think and to take sides.
#6SCD, an event that was born six years ago by a handful of students of Industrial Design from the Polytechnic School of the University of Seville, has grown exponentially to become a benchmark nationwide. Three intense days with 400 attendees from all parts of Spain and a luxury poster regarding speakers (Santa & Cole, Lékué, Espada, and Santacruz) and workshops (University of Mondragón, Cuadernos Rubio, Commite Inc.) endorse them. Domestic Data Streamers, landed from Barcelona, have been the sponsors of this sixth edition.
You started in 2013 with the aim of creating new forms of communication through the data narration. Who accompanied you then? How did it all come about?
Pau: When we were starting, we did an installation on Dalí’s surrealism at the Cadaqués Festival. When I got back in the car, they suggested me to paint a graffiti at the Wallspot festival, something that at first seemed very dull to me because it is merely someone doing a beautiful thing, but people watch it and leave. Point. So we started thinking about what we could do so that the graffiti was drawn through the people who passed by. We turned the concept around until we concluded that the interesting thing would be to introduce questions and visualize people’s responses by drawing a 24-hour timeline on a wall.
Joan: The chance wanted that the Director of the SWAB passed by and saw the mural, offering us an even bigger one to work on it the following week in the Plaza de Tres Xemeneies. We crossed several variables and asked the people who passed by their degree of happiness or sadness and their age. We visualized the information flows by colors and by hours, and suddenly we realized that we had x-rayed the square. It was terrific because the neighbors came along a lot, there were even people who brought us chocolate! (laughs) While there, a friend who was organizing some lectures came and also told us to participate. So, for a long time, one action led to another. All very organic.
Despite being born as a studio only a few years ago, your portfolio includes institutions such as the University of Berkeley, international organizations such as UNICEF and companies such as Nike or Spotify, do you work only with the big ones?
J: We are not at that point where we can afford to choose the clients with whom we work. In fact, we keep doing tiny things. Now, for example, we are doing a project with a hospital in Lleida where we are analyzing the whole process that a person with cancer follows and how, through art, you can change that procedure that is now so cold. We believe that through communication, explaining certain things or showing information about other people who have gone through the same, it is possible to improve the experience. The hospital in Lleida project is super small but tremendously exciting because it can be a significant change for these people.
P: We have grown a lot, now we are 22 people, and there are some projects that we can not say no to. Even so, there are also projects, such as some policy issues, that if they were proposed to us, we would not take them because we do not want to position ourselves very much. We have values that are not written but that are there.
You are very young, was it difficult for customers to take you seriously?
P: Yes, that’s why at the beginning we had to put on the suits and pass ourselves off as “serious people.” I still look like a teenager if I shave.
You have developed different research, art and communication projects in Italy, Germany, Norway, Mexico or Spain. What particularities have you been finding working in such diverse countries?
J: We have lived with people from many countries in our study and have had fun times. But the strangest thing was when we went to Mexico, where we suffered a very beastly cultural change and worked under a lot of pressure. I had a security person with a massive gun at the entrance of the workshop where we were setting up the installation, and it was not clear if he was there to keep an eye on the materials or to prevent me from escaping from there. He seemed to be saying: “You do not leave here until this works” (laughs).
P: Another anecdote occurred in Dubai. We went to sign some contracts, and we realized a clause that said: “everything is going to work unless there are major causes.” When we read the major causes, in addition to manifestations or typical tornado-type or flood-related weather problems, there was one that was “for a divine cause.” That is, God told our supplier that he should not work on our project, he did not have to respect the contract. This was pretty crazy (laughs).
On your website, you can read: “We use design, art, science, and technology and have such a diversity of disciplines within the team, from anthropologists and psychologists to engineers and designers, from Barcelona to Hong Kong to the US.” You are real fans of collaborative and remote work. How do you manage teams with profiles so diverse and physically so distant?
P: We are 22 people on staff, but we also have external teams that are experts in specific areas, and we collaborate with them for particular projects. We also work with freelancers and other companies to make different parts as required by the project. In our company, many project managers are dedicated to leading teams of people. Precisely 25% of our team consists of people who drive and organize, who can speak different languages and can coordinate all those involved in a project to get the job done correctly, people who are not afraid face nobody and are eager to learn. There is also a figure of the Producer, which is the one in charge of making things real, making sure that everything flows. And, of course, we have designers of many types: experiences, interaction, graphics, interiors, etc.
Did you get Domestic to feed you from the first moment?
J: No, at the beginning we carried out projects that were for us practically. Somehow we were doing our bit to tell people that we could do things differently. And we did it through installations and projects, explaining different concepts that served us to have a base where customers could start coming.
Some of your work may lead you to think that you are an advertising agency.
P: We define ourselves as a consultant because we are working from service design to projects communication, where we apply everything we have learned.
J: In fact, with some brands, we have tried to do a very didactic action regarding the role that we believe they should have in society, beyond buying and selling. We think that brands have to be more active and return things to society beyond the product itself. A beverage brand within X years will no longer sell bottled alcohol because people will probably consume it in a different way or a lot less than it’s drunk today. So your business model should be focused on providing other types of values. We try to push all the brands with which we work to think in this way. We always ask them the same question: “What are you giving back to people?.”
You always say that you do not feel at all identified with the images that Google shows when searching for the word ‘Data.’ What pictures would you put there?
J: They are currently showing like abstractions from the movie Matrix of ’99: Blue or green numbers falling from the sky that do not explain anything. A data always has a history behind, if we only look at the number, at the form, we miss a lot of information.
P: If by 2030 when putting ‘Data’ in Google Images we get dogs, trees or buildings we will have achieved a real change in the way of understanding the data.
What is big data for you?
P: There is a fun phrase about big data that compares it to teenage sex: “Everyone talks about it, and everyone says they do it, but nobody has any idea what it is.” We are currently at a time when many companies fill their mouths with this issue but do not even know what to look for. For us the data is important, but it is not the end, it is just another tool, the purpose is to change the way people perceive the world and consequently the way in which they act.
J: In fact, in Domestic we do not work with big data, but with small data, small clusters. What we try is to personalize, reach users and get qualitative information rather than quantitative. We want to know about people, their relationships, about what makes us more human.
P: Big data moves on another scale: an example would be all the information that Google could have about an individual configured by profiles, crossed with all the database that Spotify had. When you mix all these data you will find big data patterns that are not explicitly about you, but about an aggregate of millions of people.
Sometimes Pau tells the anecdote of how in his childhood he observed a lake that hinted at a hermitage depending on the level of rainfall of the season as an example of data visualization. Was it then that you discovered that you wanted to dedicate yourself to design?
P: Not at all! As a child, I wanted to be a butcher (laughs). It was nice to go with my mother to the butcher shop and see the meat that looked like plasticine. It is a bit scary (laughs). I was scared to sign up for Fine Arts because I was not sure what I could do professionally. So I thought about studying in the Advertising Faculty, but I compared the projects that came out of the faculty with those of Elisava, and I realized that they were more real, so I opted for the latter. Although the truth is that I decided on graphic design very lightly, it was not at all vocational.
When I surround myself with designers working in digital environments, it seems to dominate a generalized feeling that the term “graphic designer” is reductionist, outdated, contaminated …
P: I have a background in graphic design, and I think it is crucial for my work. But graphic design, and even product or interior design is a Western commodity because society has reached a sufficient level of well-being as to focus on things that are not vital or that are less important.
What is transcendent about design is the way of thinking that provides us, the capability to turn an idea or a concept into something real, into a physical form, into an execution. And this is what all types of design have, with the difference that perhaps graphic design gives you easier tools to make something you have in mind come true. Just as product design has more complex production processes, with graphic design you can see a couple of YouTube tutorials, go to a copy shop and get a result. This makes you lose the fear of the processes. Immediately after having an idea you can carry it out. But that is design power, and that’s why I do not think that in Domestic there are graphic designers: there are people who believe and execute the design.
Many of the Domestic Data Streamers projects are showy interactive installations. What role does research play in your creative and design processes?
J: Some projects end up being facilities but not all. In fact, less and less. While this is an essential part of what we do because it is the most innovative and with which people are fascinated more, in the end, much of the work we do is research and strategy.
P: At the beginning, we set up the Research department and every time we gave more importance to the knowledge that was generated from the projects we did. Now an entire division has been created that focuses mainly on analyzing projects at the level of expertise. We create an impact and communication brief, and another of knowledge in which we consider what we are going to learn from all this. At the end of each work, there is a document or a book in which it is proposed how to communicate or speak from moment X with this type of target in the Y context. Depending on the project, these documents are public or private. But it is clear that we can say that in our work there is a huge part of market research. For example, projects like the one we did for Beefeater, took us six months of execution in which we collected a lot of data and information and four months of subsequent analysis to reach conclusions.
J: First there is a search job, to understand the sector and exactly what customers and users need. For example, with the hospital, we are doing a lot of interviews with nurses and caregivers that provide us with the basis to start in a place that is not from scratch. This part of research is what we call Service Design. A reference for us in this regard has always been IDEO.
But it should not be easy to get a budget to research when you’re designing, and you’re starting, right?
P: Right, but one of the problems with communication and design is that too much crap is being done continuously. For example, we’ve just arrived from the Mobile World Congress we just suffered from this: Many people designing to death, something that seems absurd. You do not have to design so many things or make the super spot of the latest mobile model that does practically the same as the previous one! We are stuck in this wheel of consumption in which we need to have more and more things faster. The brands go crazy with this because they are focused on a sales model that in my opinion is misleading and that will explode; it has to stop.
In fact, I would say that it is already happening: people start to get tired, and every time they consume fewer clothes, healthier food, live with fewer things at home, etc. I think that this also has to affect the design and here the role of the designer is super important, he should be more critical of himself, ask himself: “What I’m doing makes sense?” And to get the answer, you have to do a little research. A client can not tell you “I need a logo for X” without thinking about whether he or she needs it. It has happened to us that suddenly a client asks us for an exhibition to look more innovative. And you can only say: “Mmmm, really?.”
J: There are times when you face things you do not want to do, but since we are a company and we need the money, we say “OK, but we are going to do something useful.” That’s where a previous research work begins when we consider what we can do that is good and that generates a positive impact. And there is an exercise for which no one educates us: questioning if what they are asking is right or wrong.
And have you managed to change the mentality of a client with these principles?
J: Always! What usually happens is that they have a briefing, we give it back with some feedback offering them different alternatives and new contributions.
P: Customers are giving us broadband to do what we believe. The good thing is that we are in a sector where there are still no experts. It is not like in the world of graphic design that they can say: “mmmm … yellow would be more elegant”. We do not enter to discuss the color of things, we are going to talk the strategy that has to make sense, and we use the data, which are Maths. We do not discuss personal ideas, which gives us a very high advantage when choosing a path. We do not focus on our opinion but real facts.
There is a phrase that I have heard in some of your conferences with which I agree: “There is a huge investment of time and talent in understanding how data works and what we can obtain from them. However, there is not the same investment to explain all this research to the people “Do you think this is especially true in Spain?
P. This happens everywhere. The other day I was talking to a girl who is researching polymers, and she is looking for more sustainable alternatives for companies throughout the Mediterranean. To do this job, they deliver a massive report to 1,300 people, but only two people read it. And I always say the same thing: How much money does it cost to pay everyone who is doing this research and are traveling to Tunisia, writing the reports, etc …? Minimum 200 thousand euros. If the European Union spends that money on that investigation with public funds that come from our pockets, but it doesn’t invest in reaching the people who have to make the decisions, you will not be able to change anything. The thing is that you would not need a report of 70 pages, with three well-made pages reaching the right people you would get to change many more things.
You have the thought that any vital exchange of information between people should always have emotions and experiences. Tell me about the importance of emotions in your work.
J: We designed tours and experiences to capture somehow the attention of an audience that is ultra submitted to millions of messages. So what we are looking for is to create an impact on people. As in the project with Unicef in which we designed a “time machine” that we placed in the official headquarters of the United Nations in New York. We knew we were going to have a lot of important people for only seven minutes. With those minutes you have to be able to tell a story and be emotional enough for this person to turn over so you can tell him what you think. Something that affects you personally so that you can introduce the idea you want to reach him. In this case, we made them sign a contract with their “children of the past” that would commit them to fight for the rights of children. It also happened with the projects with Spotify or with Beefeater, what we are looking for is to create this type of impact. We want to have the client or the end user more receptive and somehow isolated from all the noise that usually surrounds them so that they only listen to you.
P: There is a super bright example: if one day you get angry with your best friend, even if it is not for anything dire, it is a drama. Instead, if you see a news item on a Facebook scroll where 30 people have died, it does not affect you at all. We are immune to that information. What changes? The emotional space that you exchange with your friend affects you profoundly.
In many occasions, you generate scenarios in which people act in an improvised manner. Are you surprised by the results?
P: Sometimes we are, other times we get super obvious results, but we have the data to show that they are right and this is quite important.
Do you think that the days are numbered for linear narrative to generate a real impact? Is it obsolete?
P: I don’t think so. Traditional narrative has a lot left to offer because there has to be a change of mentality both in the way of consuming technological products and in designing them. Time has become the highest value you can have, and there is an American collective that talks about how software can be very dangerous because its design is increasingly focused on stealing time. And not in a naive way as television could do. Google suddenly says: “I need these millions of people to spend as much time as possible with me because for me that is to gain information and knowledge, and therefore earn more money because I have more data.” Then they hire the best MIT experts and the most potent researchers in the world and get them to think about how to design spaces so that you are trapped in these four digital walls as long as possible. It’s not like TV, which was about four guys advertising cakes. Everything was a very trivial show on TV. Today we are no longer in this game; we are subject to a control of which we are not at all conscious, which is making us deaf and very un-empathetic with a lot of realities.
Returning to the Mobile World Congress, which is being held at the same time we are conducting this interview. It seems that everything related to innovation and design happens in Barcelona. What role do you think the city has played in your success? Would it have been possible to create Domestic Data Streamers in another town? Have you received institutional support to push your project?
P: Barcelona is an excellent springboard, but we have done it all. One of the first biggest installations we did was with balloons, and we had the space of the design museum for free, so a couple of crazy guys who had just left the university filled it with helium. We burst a bottle, the security began to speak like a Smurf, and it was all a little crazy (laughs).
J: I believe that luck is something that is mostly determined by oneself. It is you who creates opportunities and what we did at the beginning was to create millions of them, without saying no to anything. We were looking for projects all day, talking to everyone, working like crazy and meeting people. Sometimes luck also takes sides and makes things go forward, but above all, it depends on how much you sweat your T-shirt. I remember at the beginning that we had no place to work and we met at the university or in our own homes without stopping or sleeping. We left everything that occupied us to devote only to this. And we spent all day working but for the pleasure of learning and starting something new and different.
Any mistake that you have made and future generations could avoid?
P: A lot. But they do not have to be avoidable! (laughs) We have done continuously things that we did not know we could do. We have suffered a lot because we have always aimed very high. With Spotify, for example, it was alarming because we did not know how the machine that we had proposed was manufactured and we did not get it to work until almost the day of the presentation. In fact, the day before a power supply burned and we had a terrible time, but we fixed it, it worked, and everybody was happy. When you do things that are, you have this part of the stress that for health should not be very good, but satisfaction, when things go well later, is brutal.
