illustration – Illustrating Data

Visual Workflow of Nonfiction Picture Books

I conducted a survey for the illustrators, graphic designers and editors of the 23 nonfiction picture books published in Finland in 2021. I wanted to know how the books were made. What was the visual workflow, what were the responsibilities of each professional involved, and maybe as the main question: who’s vision was the book’s visual look based on?

The survey was linked to a review of the 23 books, which you can find here in Finnish. I received responses from 19 illustrators; among them were two illustrators that had illustrated two books, ie. the part of illustrators covered 21 books. Furthermore I received responses from three graphic designers and five editors. Looking at responses from all roles, the survey covered eight books.

Books of the review at the Finnish Institute for Children’s Literature. One of the books, Rally Team, was illustrated by me.

Altogether there were 1222 children’s and young adults’ books published in Finland in 2021, and 139 nonfiction titles. My definition of a picture book defined the take: I wanted there to be a viable, balanced visual/verbal narrative. Books in which text led the way were excluded.

Finnish nonfiction picture books often have quite a lot of extent. It’s not unusual to find picture books of 56 pages. The books of the review were mostly aimed at an audience of 5 to 10-year-olds – only a couple were aimed at toddlers.

Illustrators have a strong role

Let’s start from the very beginning. Who was behind the book idea?

The illustrator; the writer; the publisher; each get credit for six books. Two books were a shared idea of the illustrator and the writer. One book was born out of an idea from an outside organization.

In 43% of the books the illustrator did the graphic design, too.

The book’s visual look was based on the illustrator’s vision in more than half (57%) of the books (3/4 of these illustrators were in charge of the graphic design also). There was collaboration, of course, but it was the illustrator’s vision that led the way, and the decisions made by the graphic designer and editor followed along and respected this. In roughly a quarter the book’s visual look was clearly a shared vision of the illustrator and the graphic designer (and they were two different persons).

The third scenario was a team where the illustrator had a clearly defined role. Based on the responses it was unclear who had the main vision of the book’s visual look in this scenario, but I’m assuming it’s the art director of the publisher.

Illustrators were involved in the process ever since the beginning in most cases.

Sometimes during my Fulbright scholarship in the United States I really had to choose my arguments on why I focus on illustrators when I talk about data visualization; wouldn’t art directors or graphic designers be a more suitable audience? They already know what data visualization is, after all. They have the skills and tools to do it. Illustrators don’t necessarily even know what it is. Many illustrators don’t know graphic design or have never included text to their illustrations.

Illustrators’ relationship with data visualization & information design

I know this. But there are also illustrators who see the graphic side of things as an essential part of their illustration: me, for example, and I’m not the only one, shows the data above. Almost a half of the respondents see data visualization or information design a part of their work as an illustrator, at least to some extent. These illustrators are usually great visual communicators and very comfortable in communicating through text and image. Their vision of a book isn’t limited only to illustration but reaches to typography used, design of end sheets and title page etc., even though there would be an art director or a graphic designer to work with.

It is noteworthy, too, that illustrators often spend the most time working on the book. It took illustrators an average of 4,3 months to illustrate the book, when estimated in 40-hour work weeks.

Data visualization for an unaccustomed audience relies more heavily on pictures. Accessible data visualization considers the emotional tone and structure of pictures. More weight on visual clarity is needed. If it is a new kind of visualization for the beholder, they need to be guided in the right direction, towards the visually important bits. It needs to be done verbally, too, but primarily it needs to be done visually. That way the visualization won’t exclude the beholder, but welcome.

More than half of the respondents had control over how much text appeared on a spread. Not everyone responded: those who had written the book they illustrated.

This is a small but important question and tells about collaboration vs. hierarchy. I would like to think that when collaborating everyone gets to share their views on all matters, but not everyone gets to see their ideas actualized. But they will be heard. I only focused here on the amount of text and not the content. The amount of text affects the illustrator’s work in a very practical way: how much space is left for the visual part.

Excerpts from Ole Munk

Why am I interested in these matters? What difference does it make when an illustrator starts working? Picture books are the most visual form of literature. To start creating a picture book with mere text has always sounded a bit irrational for me: the other literature forms are for that!

With data visualization it is the same thing: the text-based process needs to be reverted, if we’re really serious about this. If we really want the pictures to have their say, to communicate, to visualize information or data; not just decorate.

Ole Munk writes in his report Reporter or Artist …the two would be nice about the workflows of information graphics and illustration at 21 newspapers in Europe and the USA. Made already in 1992, it was still used as a central source for the chapter on workflows in the Data Visualization Handbook (Juuso Koponen, Jonatan Hildén and Tapio Vapaasalo, 2016). In their book Koponen, Hildén and Vapaasalo discuss how workflows haven’t dramatically developed towards better – at least not everywhere.

Munk writes:

“Traditionally, newspapers have been produced by “word people”, accomplished at using the left part of their brains, the center for analysis, logic, division and language.”

And continues about the traditional set-up for visual content:

“At many newspapers, the cartoonist is known for his droll ways and funny approaches. He is the “newsroom court jester”. But informational graphics is not just a question of funny approaches and imaginative drawings. If this form of communication is to be journalistically justifiable, it must be at least as comprehensible and reliable a purveyor of information as written text.”

Munk notes how “word people” appear to have substantial influence on what is being visualized—and how. He quotes a news editor on their approach to visual ideas:

“…we try to create unnecessary graphics. Then the content gets so thin, that it could easily have been put into the article. Or we try to create graphics which are so complicated, that they become too full of text—and too difficult to read.”

This matches my experience. The visual ideas of writers or copywriters or other “word people” are not bad, and they are necessary in the process. But they are not the visual ideas of visual people, and therefore shouldn’t be dominant. Everyone’s ideas should be heard.

I know I focus on illustrators maybe even a bit too much. I don’t mean it at the expense of information/graphic designers, writers or others in the process. I’m doing it because illustrators themselves don’t always see how much of a difference it makes that they really are there from the beginning; that they focus on the communication as much as the writer does, as much as everyone else in the process does. They need to perform high artistically, yes, but in nonfiction they need to perform communicatively higher.

“If the artist doesn’t fully comprehend the information to be presented, it’s a good bet most readers won’t either”.
Nigel Holmes, graphics director, TIME Magazine (The Poynter Report, Summer 1991)

Collaboration with Curiosity

I know data visualization or information design seem distant for many illustrators. I believe in collaboration; I really do. But a process where serious analysis and logic happen first and only after that – towards the end – illustrators have a clearly defined role with no control over the amount of text on a spread, is something other than collaboration. It’s a hierarchy where illustrators place low.

I’m writing this even though the survey showed how Finnish nonfiction picture books are following workflows that look good for data visualization. I’ve worked as an illustrator for more than 10 years and illustrated a lot of text-based ideas. Every now and then I’ve gotten to change the flow of the process and even revert it momentarily; and sometimes it’s all you need. But an even better scenario is to include the illustrator to the process from the beginning.

I would love nonfiction illustrators to be curious about data visualization. Curiosity is a perfect starting point for collaboration. Curious collaborators come willingly to the meeting where the process gets started, and they feel included and secure in sharing their views and listening to others. Curious collaborators understand what is being communicated through the mutual process, and why.

Curiosity moves us. Curious illustrators are more likely to start implementing data visualization or its elements to the books they are illustrating. Something good might come from that. And not just good: something logical and serious, too.

PS. I have written about workflows before: What’s so special about picture books? (20.12.2021)

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Presentations of Data in Nonfiction Picture Books in the U.S.

I spent spring semester 2022 at the Simmons University’s Center for the study of Children’s Literature in Boston, MA, USA as a Fulbright Scholar. My project topic was data visualization and children’s nonfiction picture books.

I beheld a lot of nonfiction picture books. I read scholarly and historical material about picture books and all kinds and qualities of nonfiction. I interviewed experts on children’s literature and data visualization: people working in publishing and universities, writers and visual artists. I attended events and guest lectures at Simmons University and Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, as well as SCBWI Winter Conference “Creating and Selling Children’s Books in 2022” and 14th IBBY Regional Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

I wrote an article “Why We Need Data Visualization in Children’s Picture Books, Too” to Fulbright Finland’s blog.

Illustrations and text go together

Text-image interaction was one of my main themes of interest, and the book How Picturebooks Work by Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott was the main source. The visual/verbal interaction is a key component in why I focus on picture books, and it exists in data visualization, too, but is discussed in different terms. I wrote a blog article Illustrations and text go together where I applied five ways of categorizing text-picture interaction presented by Nikolajeva and Scott for my own data visualization work.

What Illustrators do best

Data visualization made by Illustrators differs from data visualization made by Information Designers: they have different audiences. Molly Bang shows in her book Picture This: How Pictures Work how structural elements in a picture affect our emotions. She suggests the emotion to be very clear before the illustrator starts working on a picture – I believe it’s the same with data. Otherwise the intention might get lost or blurry. That is why I would love to see more data visualization made by illustrators – especially when talking of children as the audience. I wrote a blog article about this, titled Picture this: What illustrators do best.

Lessons in structures

Can a picture book be a data visualization? has been a core question in the whole project. I have encountered examples, but getting familiar with the structures of books was the biggest cue in answering the question. Expository was a new term for me. The whole theme of organizing and structuring information and the content of a whole book resonates with data visualization.

Six categories for presentations of data

The books I focused on in my independent research were nonfiction picture books with a few exceptions from fiction. They were all published in the United States. And originated – with a couple exceptions. I wanted a viable, balanced visual/verbal narrative, so I excluded books that more resembled atlases – where the story was told with primarily verbal narrative and illustrations were in a secondary role. I excluded books with infographics in their title.

The main source library for my work was the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature’s “Book Nook” that displays approximately 5,000 newly published titles for children and young adults. Arriving in January I was able to go through the books of 2021 as well as books of 2022 up until May. Furthermore I looked into older books, mostly through recommendations from teachers and students at Simmons, staff at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and interviewees. I also explored books from nonfiction award listings, magazine reviews and at the Public Library of Boston and at bookstores.

Based on my findings I created six categories for the presentations of data, and wrote a blog article for each category. In each article I first go through the presentations of data found on single spreads, used as a part of the narrative. Second, I present books that have a structure fitting the category. These books (under “Looking at Structures”) are all expository.

1. Illustrated Maps

Maps are the most usual form of data visualization in children’s nonfiction picture books. It’s not rare to find maps in fiction picture books, too. A lot of them are world maps. The maps in picture books are usually simple, easy to read and fathom, well annotated. Usually they are focused on telling one thing or a storyline, and it is clearly presented. Read more.

2. Cutaway Illustrations

Cutaway illustrations – including anatomy illustrations and exploded views – can present very different subjects: animals, humans, plants, houses, ships etc. Exploded views are often of technical subjects. Cutaway illustrations are visual information you cannot see in real life: outside and inside both visible at the same time. Read more.

3. Depictions of Time

Timelines or other continuums are the most common depictions of time. The shape can be straight (horizontal or vertical), curved or entirely round. A whole book can be a timeline. Or time can be presented through page numbering of a biography book, standing for years in a person’s life. Read more.

4. Classification

Presentations of data that exhibit classification of some sort are usually seen with animals and plants – based on scientific taxonomies, that are hierarchical. Enumeration, topical outline or the alphabet are also organizational patterns found in nonfiction picture books. Read more.

5. Visual Comparisons

Picture books are great platforms for visual comparisons of size: height, length or area. The play between big and small is visible in a lot of fiction work, too. The actual book can be involved in the comparison. Read more.

6. Numerical Data

Visual representations of numbers and numerical data. Presentations of data in this category show amounts, growth and dividing. This category is what data visualization is often first thought to mean: charts and graphs. These presentations I encountered the least in children’s nonfiction picture books. Read more.

All the examples I show in my articles are not necessarily data visualization, at least on their own; and I don’t wish to encourage the term to be used loosely. But when children are the audience and the intention is to introduce the future world of visual communication I think embracing a wider approach to the term serves the purpose.

A very big and warm thank you for everyone who helped me in my project. Special thanks to Cathryn Mercier and Shelley Isaacson!

I will continue working with these themes: The next phase is in Finland with nonfiction picture books published in Finland and the way they visualize data.

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Visual Comparisons

“Never leave a number all by itself. Never believe that one number on its own can be meaningful. If you are offered one number, always ask for at least one more. Something to compare it with.”
Hans Rosling: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

Visual comparisons are rather common in children’s nonfiction picture books. You can compare different things visually. Here the focus is on size: height, length or area.

Visual comparisons look easy when they are done right, and if they’re not – well, they make you frown. Your beholding flow stops. Picture books are great platforms for visual information like this, and the play between big and small is visible in a lot of fiction work, too. Visual comparisons that don’t need words to be comprehended allow children to be the ones to catch what’s happening.

When looking at visual comparisons from visual/verbal narrative point of view, they are primarily visual and the verbal part is selective and sparse.

I have given it thought whether this category should be on its own or should it be merged with the next one (Numerical data). All this, comparing of sizes, is of course mathematical data even though numbers might not be visible. But because of the audience (children) and form (picture book) I continue keeping them separated. You could say – this is a good category for approaching numerical data.

Chickenology – The Ultimate Encyclopaedia by Barbara Sandri, Francesco Giubbilini & Camilla Pintonato (Illustrator), 2021

The numbers can be there, of course, like in Chickenology. But the numbers are additional information: the grand focus of the illustration is on the boy and the chickens, especially the big black one. Here the comparison is of height.

My First Book of Dinosaur Comparisons by Sara Hurst & Ana Seixas (Illustration), 2021

The book by Sara Hurst and Ana Seixas, built around visual comparisons, does a good job. The comparisons are easy to grasp: You don’t necessarily need to read the text to understand that the T-rex is the size of a Londoner bus, or that the triceratops is the size of a bulldozer. Feather lengths are compared to a pencil and a large banana. The measuring tape, given to show the length of Anchiornis, gives you a one-step-further comparison to the real world’s measures.

Heads and Tails Underwater by John Canty (Author & Illustrator), 2021

Heads and Tails Underwater is a good example of a very picture book kind of way to show and compare size. Most of the other animals in the book only take up two pages on two spreads. But the whale takes 4 pages on 3 spreads: a whole extra spread, as can be seen in the picture above, because of its size.

Looking at structures

Can a visual comparison be the main structural factor of a picture book? Yes it can. Jason Chin’s Your Place in the Universe is comparisons from the beginning to the end, starting with the book itself and ending to the end of the universe. And when moving on to the next one you always see the previous page content on the left side as a comparison.

Your Place in the Universe by Jason Chin (Author & Illustrator), 2020

Chin uses the book itself as a start to comparing: 8-year-olds are about five times as tall as the book. Chin has a unique approach to data; and his upcoming book is somewhat a sequel to Your Place in the Universe: The Universe in You: A Microscopic Journey. It goes to the opposite direction!

I am a book. I am a portal to the universe. (2020) by designer and artist Stefanie Posavec and data journalist and researcher Miriam Quick was created to be an interactive experience. Every measurement in it is represented on a 1:1 scale. “Hold me up to the sky. How many stars lie behind my two pages?”

During my Fulbright project I’ve learned to use the word behold rather than read when it comes to picture books. Seems it would be especially appropriate with this book!

Visual Comparisons are the fifth category I have come up with in my Fulbright project during spring 2022 exploring presentations of data in children’s nonfiction picture books published in the United States (and originated; with a few exceptions), especially in the years 2021-22. For more information on the project and on the books I have explored read here.

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Classification

“…many twentieth-century children’s books teach the idea of list-making. What is Goodnight Moon but a catalogue of things: a list of properties both real and fanciful that mark the progress of evening and the passageway to sleep?”
Seth Lerer: Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter

Presentations of data that exhibit classification of some sort are common in children’s nonfiction picture books. It is usual to see these especially with animals and plants – based on scientific taxonomies, that are hierarchical.

Below a book spread introducing four different parasites and showing a couple of their possible hosts, and a book spread introducing a selection of Amazon’s animals and insects based on Percy Fawcett‘s journals.

A Day in the Life Bugs – What Do Bees, Ants, and Dragonflies Get Up To All Day? by Dr. Jessica L. Ware & Chaaya Prabhat (Illustrator), 2022

The Quest for Z: The True Story of Explorer Percy Fawcett and a Lost City in the Amazon by Greg Pizzoli (Author & Illustrator), 2017

*Kaleidoscope of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life – Their Colors and Patterns Explained* by Greer Stothers (Author & Illustrator), 2022

A tree of life. This is probably the first tree diagram I encounter in a children’s book, with a content well suited for the form.

Looking at structures

“Enumeration, or topical outline, represents the most frequently used organizational pattern for information books. In such works, writers describe their subjects by examining what they believe to be the relevant parts of that whole.”
Betty Carter: Reviewing Nonfiction Books for Children and Young Adults: Stance, Scholarship, and Structure

Classification can be a structural element of a picture book. A lot of nonfiction picture books on animals and plants, for example, (like I am the Shark by Joan Holub & Laurie Keller (Illustrator), 2021) follow a structure based on a scientific taxonomy or some other similar order created by the author.

Data scientist, Statistician and Professor Emeritus at Yale University Edward Tufte has prompted data to be ordered substantively or based on performance rather than alphabetically. Alphabetical order should be saved for look-up lists, such as glossaries. I often contemplate this when I encounter children’s picture books based on alphabetical order. They do have to learn it, yes. In some cases perhaps some other structures could be considered, too? There are a lot of them, after all.

An ABC of Democracy by Nancy E.K. Shapiro & Paulina Morgan (Illustrator), 2022

A for Activism, B for Ballots, C for country… In An ABC of Democracy the content fits the form well. It is a list of information on democracy that doesn’t have a predefined order, otherwise; it is the author’s view on what democracy consists of. (K for Knock on Doors, Q for Questions, U for Uplifting…)

In most cases the structural order of the book tells more about what the book is trying to communicate than the title. For example Only in America: The Weird and Wonderful 50 States by Heather Alexander & Allan Berry Rhys (Illustrator) might sound at first like a geographical book. But the content, 50 states, is structured alphabetically. If a book on geographical content is structured alphabetically, it’s not geographical info it’s trying to convey. This one focuses on introducing weird laws, quirks, unusual records etc. state-by-state.

With the first category: Illustrated Maps I mention Maps by Aleksandra Mizielińska and Daniel Mizieliński, 2013. The book is structured based on continents, and (hierarchically) countries in them. The countries are ordered from north to south. North-to-south or corresponding structure suits well maps and geographical info. When countries are in an alphabetical order, neighbouring countries might end up far from each other.

What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins & Robin Page, 2003

The nonfiction picture books by Steve Jenkins (and Steve Jenkins and Robin Page) have come up often during my project, and I have gotten familiar with several of them. I like the combination of the skilled collage illustration style and the illustrations’ information/data-heavy function. This book is focused on different parts of animals: Tails, eyes, mouths, etc. On the first spread they are presented with a question and on the second spread you find the answers.

Water Land – Land and Water Forms Around the World by Christy Hale (Author & Illustrator), 2018

Water-Land is a unique picture book with its cutouts of either form of water/land. The illustration follows the cutouts along cleverly! As a back matter there’s a map fold-out, with lists of most known forms of water/land around the world. The picture book shows a few different forms, starting from the most obvious and easiest: Lake/island.

Classification is the fourth category I have come up with in my Fulbright project during spring 2022 exploring presentations of data in children’s nonfiction picture books published in the United States (and originated; with a few exceptions), especially in the years 2021-22. For more information on the project and on the books I have explored read here.

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Picture this: What Illustrators do best

One of the first books Cathryn Mercier recommended for me upon arrival at the Simmons University and Center for the Study of Children’s Literature was “Picture This: How Pictures Work” by Molly Bang. It’s a charming and invigorating book, first published in 1991, and it is used in teaching at the Simmons’ children’s literature program’s The Picturebook course.

The book shows how the structural elements in a picture affect our emotions. How we perceive shapes, colors and other compositional elements of a scene within the context of our own experience.

As an illustrator I found a lot in the book familiar and something I had knowingly and intuitively been following along. To read it through wasn’t tiresome, quite the opposite. Bang presents her insights and principles with such curiosity and zest that it was hard to stop reading. Or learning.

Illustrators work with pictures. They know how to make them scary, joyful, serene or sad. Below is an illustration from my personal project: summary of the year 2020. I will apply a couple of Bang’s principles and notions on it.

Bang’s 1st principle: “Smooth, flat, horizontal shapes give us a sense of stability and calm.”

I thought of this as a calm, centered illustration that would present its information horizontally in rows (wavy clotheslines) and could have a hint of longing to it. The pools were closed starting early March until the beginning of June and then again they closed towards the end of November.

Bang’s 6th principle: “White or light backgrounds feel safer to us than dark backgrounds because we can see well during the day and only poorly at night.”

The background color for all of these images was black or dark purple. I knew its effect – it was 2020 I was talking about!

I chose blue as a hint to the water that I was missing. And red for the words of months when that missing happened. White is the strongest contrast on a black background, that’s why the main narrative (text) is white, but this slightly pale red would be strong, too, and it would catch attention only how red does. It would tell different things.

Bang writes: “What is red? Blood and fire.”

From emotions to data

“When I was making the illustrations, my husband suggested I decide on the emotion in every picture before I begin it, and that I make that feeling very clear”, Bang writes.

I think what Bang writes is true with data, too. Whether it’s an illustration or a story on data, the illustrator has to know the data in every illustration before they begin it, and make that data very clear. Otherwise the message might get lost or blurry.

Illustrators have an incredible skillset in making pictures that affect our emotions. They know what Bang is talking about. What if illustrators could use those skills on illustrating data?

This is the question I am pondering in my project. What would data visualization look like if it were made by illustrators and aimed at children?

What do you think?

Illustration and text go together

I have been thrilled to learn the terms ‘text-image interaction’ and ‘visual and verbal narrative’ during my Fulbright project – and get acquainted with the talk of them. For some time I had been searching for the best words to talk about this theme: I feel it combines picture books and data visualization big time.

In the book ”How Picturebooks Work” (Garland Publishing 2001) Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott walk us through different ways of categorizing text-picture interaction first by referring to other scholarly works and then revealing their own ‘word/image table’. One of the discussed concepts is from Joanne Golden, which Nikolajeva & Scott see as an excellent starting point for a spectrum even wider.

All these concepts in the book focus in the way words and pictures collaborate in telling stories. Since I’m interested in the way words and pictures collaborate in communicating data, I thought as an experiment I would apply Golden’s five categories to data visualization / illustrating data work I’ve done. If it works out, I will continue to the wider spectrum by Nikolajeva & Scott. Let’s see what happens!

1. The text and pictures are symmetrical

These are scenes from an animation for the Finnish Swimming Teaching and Lifesaving Federation. The intended audience was immigrant families. The text tells exactly the same that you can see in the illustration: the illustration shows exactly what’s told with words.

2. The text depends on pictures for clarification

I thought of these as entities that would not be understood without the picture. First one is an exploded view of a heart rate monitor that was made for the Runner magazine. The technical vocabulary is rather difficult and it would not be an easy read for non-experts without the illustration: illustration makes it comprehensible.

Pie chart is one of the simplest ways to present data such as in the second illustration: Three answer options to the question (from an article series by the Finnish Sports Confederation on sports and ethics) and how much each was voted for by a jury.

3. Illustration enhances, elaborates text

This category still shows collaboration of text and picture, where both carry the weight of communication. The difference with the previous category is that here the visual enhancement is not as crucial. The text alone is comprehensible.

The first illustration is a scene from an animation on low-carbon construction for the Ministry of Environment. The illustration enhances the stages referred to and the cyclicity of the life cycle (which is more visible in the animation with parts rotating back from the final to the first phase).

The second illustration is from my own project, Year 2020 illustrated. It was a story of 8 illustrations with text summarizing that year and its numbers.

4. The text carries primary narrative, illustration is selective

I think this category can point to a rather traditional, decorative role of illustration, or it can mean zooming into a specific important detail.

These illustrations were made for a presentation of NodeHealth project’s conclusions. Both illustration was built around three sentences, so text was definitely primary. The illustrations zoom in on the related professionals discussed – and they decorate.

5. The illustration carries primary narrative, text is selective

These pieces would not exist if it weren’t for the illustration: it’s the whole point. And the text follows its lead.

First illustration was made for a driving school text book. It was a pair to a bar chart of car accident causes. The writer wanted an illustration to emphasize that most accidents are caused by failures in estimation and observation, not in failures in operating the car or other reasons.

The map illustration was made for a magazine about the different definitions of the Arctic and the operators involved – Arctic Council member countries and European Union. This was the first time I actually sat down and stared at the globe from this point of view.

This data visualization was made for a publication on guidance of refugees. It shows the amounts of residence permits (on the basis of international protection) in Finland (2959) and Sweden (6540) in comparison to the amount of asylum applications in the European Union in 2019.

Translations in the illustrations were made by me.

List of clients: the Finnish Swimming Teaching and Lifesaving Federation, the Finnish Runner magazine, the Ministry of Environment, The Finnish Sports Confederation Valo, Superson, Autokoulu Ressu, Vihreä Tuuma and the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment.

Year 2021 illustrated

I like to follow the balance between my illustration work and infographics/data visualizations. It is not always easy to draw the line, since most of my projects are a combination of both. And not rarely a project that starts out as an infographics commission ends up being an illustration – with perhaps a very communicative function.

My interest in this balance is one of the reasons why I’ve done these summaries of my years (2018 & 2020). This year I decided not to count the amounts of illustrations or other work pieces like I’ve done before. It was always tricky to do (the projects are so different from one another) and the number didn’t basically tell me anything.

This year I based it on time used.

In 2021 I worked on 2 books (finished 1).

Book projects are the backbone of my professional year: they take so much time. So they need to be planned ahead and usually still it’s a juggling act on getting it all done on time.

And of course they are important. And of course there are always new ones screaming for my attention.

In the previous years I counted only the characters with facial features (2020: 145, 2018: 85). But I often illustrate tiny human figures, and some of them clearly represent a specific gender. So this year I counted all the characters who were more than mere stick figures or something very general.

Illustration is often intertwined with stereotypes in order to communicate, and I believe everyone has moments of bias and blindness. As much as possible I portray non-binary in my characters. It is work-in-progress, always.

Gender equality is important to me especially because I’ve illustrated subjects like rally car racing and motorcycle road racing – traditionally male-dominated. Nowadays it’s time they look different.

These numbers, obviously, are based on how the characters look. I’ve had a fair share of notions about eye lashes on men… perhaps someone else might do the math a little different!

Bye 2021! You and your numbers.

What’s so special about picture books?

There’s picture books and there’s illustrated books.

To first have a text, then commission an illustrator to illustrate it, and then put it all together maybe using a graphic designer is a way to make an illustrated book. I know this is how a lot of publishers work, and their expertise lies especially in finding the right illustrator to match a specific text or a specific writer. But to make a picture book like that?

I attended a seminar in Tampere, Finland on November 18th by the Finnish Institute for Children’s Literature. It focused on the illustration in children’s books. For me the seminar only crystallized the specialty of a picture book, an artform of story, illustration and words. Hence the idea of words coming to life and being revised to perfection before an illustrator even comes along puzzles me. In that case is it more of an illustrated book, a picture-book-lookalike? How much is it a picture book if words are the ones running the show? If the pictures are left with the role of a decorative element, something you turn your eyes to after reading the text? Counter-intuitive, wouldn’t you say, if it’s a picture book?

Text first, pictures second

We live in a crazily visual culture with the never-stopping image feed of social media and daily communication through emojis and memes. Yet we strongly hold onto words as a source of real and serious information. The idea of words coming first, pictures second is so usual we don’t even stop to think could it be the other way around. The illustrators and other visual designers know this, but if it’s only the illustrator raising their voice in wanting to start working earlier in the process it is rarely heard. Or it may be misunderstood: “The illustrator is just so eager to start selecting the right pencils…”

With data visualizations the presence of a visual designer on the starting line is perhaps even more obvious. In the Data Visualization Handbook the authors Juuso Koponen, Jonatan Hildén and Tapio Vapaasalo (2016, the original Finnish version) go through work processes of information design. Below I’m freely summarizing a few ideas why they think the visual designer needs to be aboard when the project starts.

The best ideas typically are born out of interaction between people with different skill sets. A good visual designer knows the presentations of data generally better than the content experts. Defining the target audience and its needs are decisions of the early stage where the input of visual designer is helpful: a lot of later decisions depend heavily on the needs of the target audience. Also, a good information designer understands the type of data that is needed to construct visualizations usually better than the content experts. It can be very time-consuming to start proceeding with the wrong type of data that is challenging to bend into visual shape – desired or any.

Not just eager to sharpen pencils

I don’t mean to exaggerate. Stellar picture books born out of a brilliant text do exist. The illustrator’s take on the text influences and changes it, and could lead to a properly equal cooperation of a kick-ass author-illustrator match.

Picture books can tell about something small and light and leave the reader delighted and entertained. Or they can tell about things big and heavy, and leave the reader touched and transformed. Non-fiction picture books can take a real and serious idea and make it even more real and serious – even so serious that adults pay attention! Illustrators are the ones deepest invested in the soul of a picture book, and they need to be involved every step of the way. They need to be there when selecting the topic and collecting data, and when the needs of target audience are decided.

Otherwise the book might end up an illustrated book, where the reader reads the text first and glimpses at the decorating pictures second. Counter-intuitive, wouldn’t you say, if it’s a picture book?

Year 2020 illustrated

My 2020’s numbers illustrated. I did this two years ago, too, and thought it’s time for an update with new numbers of the strange year.

Illustration of five books; one of them finished

A pie chart of 69 illustrations and how many were for books (35) / client projects (32) / personal projects (2)

Towards new!

Downsizing big and bold

Two years ago I arranged an exhibition big and bold. 16 illustrations, height 2,3 meters, width 6 meters. Altogether the exhibition was nearly 100 meters wide, it was outside, and it was my first exhibition ever.

No one knows how many people saw it during those 2,5 weeks, but I know several who went and saw it on a motorcycle. I had wished for that, since the illustrations were from a book that told about a motorcycle road racing legend, Jarno Saarinen. The exhibition was following a road that used to be a race circuit, next to the Helsinki Olympic Stadium.

After the exhibition was over, I took the pieces down, rolled them up and carried to my storage, washed them (both sides) and rolled them up again. It was a lot of work, they were huge and heavy, and when I closed the storage door there was nothing I wanted more than to forget they existed.

Don’t get me wrong. I love them! Among those 16 were the illustrations that got highly commended in the World Illustration Awards children’s book category 2019. The printing turned out superb, they’re truly impressive with their size. People wanted to buy, I wanted to sell. Until the buyers realized it was actually 6 meters wide we’re talking about.

They were just TOO BIG.

When the lockdown started in March 2020, I knew what my corona project would be: downsizing the big and bold exhibition posters. They had started their siren songs from the depths of the storage (two stories up from my apartment) and I knew I couldn’t hide anymore.

But how? Where should I cut? I started it on screen.

I had to create something new. I couldn’t look at them the same way I had when creating illustrations for the book, to tell the story. And I had to pay attention to the size.

The motorcycles were the most interesting to cut. I had loved illustrating all the small technical parts and to learn how a motorcycle works – even only shallowly. Now all that small technical got to be highlighted better than before.

I don’t think I ever will arrange an exhibition that big again. But if someone asked for my advice in arranging one – if they should do it or not, I would say in a heartbeat: “Go for it.”

And then I would add: “You can always downsize them later.”