infographics – Illustrating Data

Bologna: Beauty, Censorship and Data

I gave a masterclass talk on Data Visualization and Nonfiction Picture Books on Women’s Day, March 8th, at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, Italy. Thank you everyone who came! I had a focused audience that asked brilliant questions (“Can you show examples of emotional structures in data illustrations?” I will get back to that!).

Data

In the classic hierarchy pyramid of data, data is the bottom and information is on top of data. Then comes knowledge, and wisdom is on the top. My focus is on data and information, in this order, and focus on data was the main theme of my talk.

Data is raw information that doesn’t have a message. It doesn’t have a narrative; or a beginning, middle and an end. It usually doesn’t have anything specific to say to you. It only starts to speak to you when you spend time with it and listen. Information is different: It has a message that it wants to deliver.

Picture books as a format are exploratory. Children approach them to explore. The beating heart of data visualization is exploratory, too. The data is there for you to go and explore.

Explanatory visualizations are usually referred to as information design, and I have worked mostly with explanatory visualizations in my career and client work. Explanatory is not bad, and we need more of that generally eg. in society. Picture books, on the other hand, need much more of the exploratory. They are not an explanatory format. However, it is not hard to find picture books with a clear explanatory function or tone of communication.

At the moment the work in my project consists of answering the question: What is missing? I’m referring to the forms of visualizations and elements of data visualization that are not yet there in nonfiction picture books.

I asked the question from my audience in Bologna. In recent years, the field of children’s nonfiction has done a great job in answering that question thematically. The trend of rebel girls and women’s biographies are good examples. Another visible data-resonating theme is the climate crisis. For example, in my review of 23 Finnish nonfiction picture books from 2021, two books presented the same set of data: biomass of mammals (60% livestock, 40% humans, and 4% wild mammals). This data is precisely where it needs to be, especially when noted that a big part of children’s nonfiction is of animals and nature. But what is not yet there?

Jer Thorp reminds us in his book Living in Data – A Citizen’s Guide to a Better Information Future (2021) that with every data set that exists, someone wanted it to exist. Thorp refers to an artist and data researcher Mimi Onuoha, who has collected The Library of Missing Datasets. According to Onuoha, there are several reasons why data is missing: mismatch between incentive and resources, the collecting is too tricky, there’s too big of a burden of reporting for the individual – or someone didn’t want the data to be collected in the first place.

You can only visualize data sets that exist. It is choice upon choice. Children’s books are rarely collecting the data they show; they visualize data from secondary sources. Secondary sources bring along the need for responsibility and critical thinking.

Censorship

In a panel discussion on Censorship of Books at the Bologna Book Fair three speakers were from the United States, three from Europe, and this reflected the discussion and examples. I enjoyed the bold global view of the panel discussion. In Europe censorship often is about eg. books not made for certain groups out of prejudices such as ‘these groups of people don’t read’, awards not handed out to specific books, decisions made during translation, removal of unwanted content.

A large majority of book censorship in the U.S. at the moment is happening because of advocacy organisations focused on demanding censorship of certain books and ideas in schools. “The vast majority of the books targeted by these groups for removal feature LGBTQ+ characters or characters of color, and/or cover race and racism in American history, LGBTQ+ identities, or sex education.” tells a report by PEN America.

It is politically motivated and systematic. The American author David Levithan warned Europeans: “What the far right is doing in our country, conservatives in your countries are taking notes from.” There were two examples mentioned in the panel discussion from Italy and the Netherlands, which reminded chillingly much the work of the advocacy organisations in the U.S.

Professor of children’s literature at the University of Bologna, Giorgia Grilli, reminded us of self-censorship and commented that a world where artists adapt to the dominant view worries her. “When artists are not willing to write about something that is ideologically charged”. (You can read more of my reporting of the panel discussion here on Publishers Weekly’s article.)

This all resonates with the question of What is missing?, even though something missing isn’t always because of censorship. Censorship is linked with what is already there: it is trying to make something disappear. But what if something is not there in the first place?

Beauty

An exhibition Beauty and the World, curated by professor Grilli and Ilaria Dindelli, was on display at Biblioteca Salaborsa in Bologna. The exhibition displayed over 600 original nonfiction picture books published internationally over the last 15 years. The books were divided into 11 sections, that could be followed along two different paths: Sizes, Numbers and Measurements and Visible/Invisible.

“Books with a clearly subjective, ‘authorial’ perspective and personal illustrative style were deliberately privileged over books that present their material in a supposedly objective, neutral, dispassionate manner.”

The Beauty that was collected to this one hall was an impressively wide variety of nonfiction. The exhibition nearly knocked me off my feet! First of all, the books on display were all picture books. They really were. I deliberately focus on picture books in my work; still, when we’re talking about data visualization and nonfiction, you find more examples of charts and graphs in illustrated books where text is leading the way. I feel the focus occasionally slips easily out of picture books, even though I find it counterintuitive: Charts and graphs are visual. Shouldn’t they be found primarily in the most visual form of literature, a picture book?

“Some were left out, even if — or especially because — they are extremely fashionable today, as is the case of (didactic and paternalistic) books on climate change and (women’s) biographies.”

Second, the books in the exhibition were all nonfiction. You found books on deepest oceans, highest buildings, migrating birds, animal bones, rockets, trains, microbes and human body. Books on classifying and sorting, books on alphabets, books on counting, books on comparisons. All in all: lots of different creative approaches to the real World, not just approaches through stories (though they are a part of nonfiction, too).

The exhibition talks about The New Nonfiction Picturebook, as well as does this book Non-fiction Picturebooks by Grilli. I’m very much on board with this term and its visual, innovative and exploratory connotations.

Last, I have visited some quality libraries and bookstores in my life, where nonfiction is appreciated, but still it is more usual to see the spines of nonfiction picture books whereas on the fiction shelf you see the book covers. It was unforgettable to experience such a big number of nonfiction picture books on shelves showing their covers instead of spines.

Thank you Bologna!

PS. Quotes are from the Beauty and the World exhibition’s texts.

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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Numerical Data

“…many of us are cajoled by the mere presence of numbers and charts in the media we consume, no matter whether we can interpret them well.”
Alberto Cairo: How Charts Lie – Getting Smarter about Visual Information

Visual representations of numbers and numerical data are the core of my Fulbright project — that is what I thought when I started. I thought I would mostly focus on this category. And it would have been true had I focused on the infographics books.

But I excluded them. The contrast started to feel big. Infographics books are full of representations of numerical data, and in other books they are rare. Infographics books often refer to infographics in the title — I felt addressing an audience already interested in the theme.

And there aren’t that many of them.

Few words on my thoughts behind the whole project

The year 2020 brought data visualization in front of our eyes more than ever before. Graphs, charts and different kinds of visualizations on amounts of covid cases and deaths filled the media. It was all numbers. The ones who are best equipped in reading them are people with good education and who work with charts and graphs on a daily basis. Those people already had the tools to not just interpret and understand but start digesting the new data.

I don’t think everyone did. They are not innate skills. I saw a lot of graphs and charts I didn’t understand. I highly doubt I’m the only one. In my client work for several years, I’ve learned that people don’t easily say when they don’t understand a graph or a visualization. They just hum along.

I think there are a lot of people who don’t see a lot of data visualization in their daily life. I think it’s true with a lot of artists, for example. They don’t open up Excel and PowerPoint in their daily work. Why would they?

Do picture book makers get a little insecure or shy with numbers? I often wonder, looking at creative clever gorgeous nonfiction picture books that could tell about their themes through numbers, too, but they don’t.

Let’s see what I found.

Lines, Bars and Circles: How William Playfair Invented Graphs by Helaine Becker & Marie-Ève Tremblay (Illustrator), 2017

A book about the person who invented charts and graphs, William Playfair!

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

The death count on the left page shows how many have disappeared or died in search of Percy Fawcett and his two comrades. I was rather sure I would find data presented like this more in children’s nonfiction picture books (with less dire topics).

Lifetime: The Amazing Numbers in Animal Lives by Lola M Schaefer & Christopher Silas Neal (Illustrator), 2013

Lifetime is a picture book that shows a lifetime in different numbers. The book has a very interesting approach on the subject and a comfortable pace, and the amount of information per spread is precise; there’s no rush.

Climate Action: The Future is in Our Hands by Georgina Stevens & Katie Rewse (Illustrator), 2021

Climate Action doesn’t have infographics in its title, but I’d say it is an infographics book. The reason I still chose to pick it here is the bar graph on the left on this spread, on greenhouse gases. When I first saw it I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to place illustrations inside the bars; would it make the whole information (ahem, the main thing) hard to read or remember. But I just couldn’t forget this graph. It was the first time I saw someone illustrate the bars on a bar graph with the content. I definitely remembered what the first two bars were.

Ever since I have considered this the single most interesting graph I’ve encountered in the project. (Would I recommend it to be widely used elsewhere? Let’s not go that far!)

Looking at structures

Anno’s Counting Book by Mitsumasa Anno (Author & Illustrator), 1977

There are lots of counting books from 1 to 10. I chose Anno’s Counting Book, a classic from 1977, as an example because of the counting blocks on the left side of each spread. Clever introduction to bar graphs. The book counts from 1 to 12.

One Grain of Rice – A Mathematical Folktale by Demi (Author & Illustrator), 1997

One Grain of Rice – A Mathematical Folktale by Demi is a lesson on how numbers grow through doubling. Different animals carrying bags and baskets are needed (more and more) to carry all the rice that keeps doubling up each day for 30 days in a row. The culmination is a double gatefold showing 256 elephants carrying the rice.

Storytime Math

Storytime Math by Charlesbridge is a children’s picture book series where fictional stories are built around math themes, such as sorting and classifying, patterns, proportional thinking, spatial sense, to mention a few. The addressing of the themes reflect what children do in their everyday lives; things and situations where mathematical thinking is needed. You don’t necessarily even realize these are math books. They don’t underline the mathematics, and they don’t end with an answer.

Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers by Rajani LaRocca & Chaaya Prabhat (Illustrator), 2021

In Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers Bina arranges patterns from different colored beads for her three brothers.

Usha and the Big Digger by Amitha Jagannath Knight & Sandhya Prabhat (Illustrator), 2021

The themes of Usha and the Big Dipper are geometry and spatial sense. Usha and her sister and cousin are looking at constellations on a night sky.

Needless to say, I love this approach. I would love to see a similar book series on infographics and data visualization, too. Something not underlined in the title, but rather woven inside the story (narrative or expository), close to children’s daily lives.

Numerical Data is the sixth and final 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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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.

Interested in more?

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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.