Dear Data: A Friendship in 52 Weeks of Postcards Flexibound – Illustrated, September 6, 2016

For visual people, this book is top notch. So, too, for rational people. Anyone who enjoys poring over a map or atlas, this is your book.Making sense out of the seemingly meaningless, the seemingly random, and finding personality, character, and story behind it.This book is visual poetry.This is why we need a sixth star.If you enjoy this, also try "Plotted."**update:** two weeks later: I have now given this book as a gift and shared my copy with a friend. I am just blown away by the quality of the ideas in this book. It's very exciting!

The world is beautiful, with all the unseen and the seen, a tapestry waiting be threaded to our understanding and expression. Through the hand-drawn visualizations in this gorgeous book, I feel that I could touch this tapestry. These drawings serve as a braille for my seeing, bringing intent and clarity into my interaction with the world. Giorgia’s and Stefanie’s drawings bring forth all the things we sometimes hardly notice. Reading about each week’s theme fetches the most ‘curious’ out of my intellect and creativity. And this inspires a desire to discover, see and interact with different informational layers of the world.Dear Data gives us a framework, tools and tangible blueprints for what we could create with the data that surrounds us in our own ways. How much do we notice? How can we categorize, quantify and express all that we notice? What are the choices we make every day to see and to interact with the world? What are the shapes and forms that will give life to how we feel the world around us and to our cognizance? How can we be open, free and aware enough to express our inner most feelings about the world that surrounds us?Dear Data is a wonderful fusion of data, design, art and discovery of a new language of expression. To watch Giorgia’s and Stefanie’s journey of 52 weeks through hand-made data stories and artifacts is so inspiring and intellectually refreshing. Witnessing their vulnerability and generosity in sharing their world with each other and with us is so magical and honest. They entrust the journey of their 52 weeks, a part of their life, in our hands. I find this faith absolutely beautiful, innocent and revolutionary in the world of data and design.Giorgia Lupi recently started to talk more about ‘Data Humanism’. This book is the perfect example to this term. Dear Data presents how we could relate our feelings and perspectives to the data the world generously gives us all the time in the most insightful, humanistic and loving ways. This is a book of wonder and magic that makes us think, feel, express and share our world in our own truest ways.

I didnt see another review on The kindle version. As this is heavily image driven I thought I would share screen shots. On a Kindle to see an image up close you hold your finger on the image until it shifts to zoom mode and then use 2 fingers to shrink or enlarge. Yes, that is a pain but in this book it lets you examine a segment more closely which is of interest to those curious about the details of plotting. I have the print book and that was frustrating about it. My older eyes needed a magnifying glass. The black framed photos are a Paperwhite 11th gen. The white frame is a Paperwhite 7th gen. and the colored photos are screenshots from my phone, a Samsung Galaxy S9. The first "chart" didnt use color in a significant way. The last 3 show the same chart without (Kindles) and with (phone) colors.Persons intereated in beauty will want color for the inspiration so print or device that displays color, eg PC Kindle app.Persons interested in the data could go either way but zooming is a big help. (and this is an important lesson to learn about -consider the color and how it looks in black and white. Your reader wont always have a color device).Hope this is helpful.

An amazing book. A pair of talented artists square off to each find a novel way to clearly depict data of one form or another- how many moments of happiness, and just about everything else - in a clear and insightful way. Each result was sent via postcard to the other artist, and the set of cards make up this book. An extraordinary work of creativity and clarity of vision.

This book gave me ideas on how to look at data in different ways and I enjoyed the level of personal insight it gave the authors.My only feedback is either this book should not be offered as an ebook or the ebook needs to get reformatted. Some visuals I had to zoom in on but then I could no longer see the legend.

Thoroughly enjoyed this one!

This is just a quick review but I work at a center for collaborative creativity and innovation on a college campus. This was bought with the intention to inspire students by the work of these two individuals who visualized the data about themselves. So many students jaws drop when they see the vibrant illustrations of data on each postcard and then they are challenged to understand it using the key provided on the other side of the post card (each page displays the front and back of these homemade postcards). Its an incredibly inspirational book that shares a story in a unconventional way and can encourage anyone who reads it to pick up a pen and start capturing their own data and then visualize it! I found out the book by listening to this podcast: [...]This interview will give you a lot more info about the book and one of the authors before you press the buy button.

I do not usually find reading books on topics which I am particularly not interested in thrilling, however did find myself enjoying some aspects of Dear Data. I found the overall penmanship and data drawings to be very beautiful. Besides this, I was not really that intrigued in all aspects of studying and analyzing all pieces of data filled with random occurrences of these two women’s lives. Perhaps if I had some type of connection or relationship with them it would be better but I would much rather prefer to analyze the data of someone whom I know or create some myself.

Learned of this book through my masters teaching program. You could spend hours looking through this book. Definitely a great addition to your coffee table or bedside table as you can decide how much or how little you want to take in. So interesting to see the differences between the artists styles and interpretations of the data for the week.

This is one of my favourite book purchases over the last few years… and I’m only a few pages in! Giorgia and Stefanie have created the ultimate antidote to “big data” and a poignant reminder that it is the small things that make up our lives, our identities and our relationships. The book is bigger than I imagined and I’m so pleased it is, because it does their hand-drawn pages justice. Can’t recommend enough. If you’re a designer, artist or just a person interested in the world, this is a must have.

Letto e studiato per un esame universitario, sono contenta di aver conosciuto ed esplorato il progetto portato avanti da queste due designers, volto alla scoperta di sé stessa e del loro modo di percepire il mondo e le emozioni che le circondano. Lo consiglio vivamente!

Este libro hace ver de forma direct que hay muchas maneras de representar datos fuera de las tradicionalmente usadas en matemáticas y ciencias. Abre un camino nuevo para acercarse a estas disciplinas de forma personalizada y creativa, sin perder el objetivo de cuantificar datos de una manera correcta. Inspirador para aquellos que enseñamos estas disciplinas y para nuestros alumnos.

C'est un très beau livre, bien fini, à travers lequel on découvre petit à petit les auteures.Déchiffrer les graphiques devient un jeu et c'est un vrai plaisir.