picture books – 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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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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Depictions of Time

It is common to find timelines in children’s nonfiction picture books in the content or in back matter. Usually time is shown as a continuum, and the choices are made between the shape: whether it is straight (horizontal or vertical), curved or even entirely round.

Timeline is often read as a timeline even though there would not be a visible line at all. Dates, years or other measures of time happening one after (or next to) another reads as a timeline.

*Let the Children March* by Monica Clark-Robinson & Frank Morrison (Illustrator), 2018

Signs as a timeline suits well the theme of this book. The timeline continues in the endsheets on the back, telling what happened after the children’s march.

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

Round timeline like this sometimes suit the spread of a picture book better than a straight line from left to right. In a book shaped like this (portrait) a round timeline fills the spread more evenly than a horizontal line. Interestingly, this runs counterclockwise.

*Rescuing Titanic: A true story of quiet bravery in the North Atlantic* by Flora Delargy (Author & Illustrator), 2021

Time can be shown in a very daily life kind of way, too: In Rescuing Titanic the reader is kept up to date with time and pace of events by watches (different ones on Titanic and Carpathia) showing the time on nearly every spread. The picture book is very suspenseful, and staying up to date on whether there is hope for Titanic or not (even though you should know…) makes you look at the time in the watches closely!

This round, fun and surprising egg visualization is structured on the basis of time: starting from poached egg on the left (3min.) and proceeding clockwise to 150° egg (30min.).

Looking at structures

Can a timeline or other depiction of time be the main structural factor of a picture book? Certainly. A lot of narrative nonfiction follows a story arc based on chronology. But to truly use time as a structural element: I have three examples.

*Thunderstorm* by Arthur Geisert (Author & Illustrator), 2013

Arthur Geisert’s Thunderstorm is one of the best examples of a children’s picture book that is a data visualization. You could call it one wide graph. Graph, where x axis shows time – and y axis tells about the storm in a freedom-filled way! The storm comes, rages and moves forward, away from the pastoral setting we’re viewing. There’s an accordion edition of the book available, the kinship to a graph is even more evident in that version. Thunderstorm is a silent (/wordless) picture book, if the annotations of time in the bottom of some of the pages are not taken into account.

*The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown* by Mac Barnett & Sarah Jacoby (Illustrator), 2019

The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown tells about children’s book writer Margaret Wise Brown who lived a life of 42 years. The picture book has 42 pages. This structural undertone follows along throughout the picture book and creates tension, and should I say – a very visceral feeling of what you are reading through.

The Next President: The Unexpected Beginnings and Unwritten Future of America’s Presidents by Kate Messner & Adam Rex (Illustrator), 2020

The Next President is structured around four years: 1789, 1841, 1897 and 1961. The spreads show what presidents alive that year were doing, and of course how old they were. The book’s view on time is thought-provoking: “At least ten of our future presidents are probably alive today.” is how it ends. The future is wide open!

Depictions of Time are the third 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 mostly originated; with 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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Cutaway Illustrations

Cutaway illustrations – including anatomy illustrations and exploded views – are very common in children’s nonfiction picture books. They are kind of like maps but on different subjects: animals, humans, plants, houses, ships…. Exploded views you often see of technical subjects.

This is visual information you cannot see in real life: Outside and inside both visible at the same time. Usually they take a lot of the illustrator’s time, and require extensive background work. The illustration might be put together from several different materials and sources: photographs, live sketching, video footage, diagrams and articles. Expert help in different stages is crucial. When it’s nonfiction everything needs to be accurate, and you just don’t necessarily have a shark nearby to cut open (and don’t want to!).

*Neighbourhood Sharks – Hunting with the Great Whites of California’s Farallon Islands* by Katherine Roy (Author & Illustrator), 2014

Katherine Roy’s skilled anatomy illustration of a shark shows how its heat exchange system works.

*The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin* by Peter Sís (Author & Illustrator), 2003

Peter Sís’s cutaway from H.M.S. Beagle, Charles Darwin’s ship departing from Devonport in 1831, shows the ship’s interiors, passengers and crew.

*Nano – The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small* by Dr. Jess Wade & Melissa Castrillón (Illustrator), 2021

Nano – The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small is a nonfiction book but this house is fiction, I’m guessing – and a good example of a cutaway of a house.

*The Message – The Extraordinary Journey of an Ordinary Text Message* by Michael Emberley (Author & Illustrator), 2021

Michael Emberley’s exploded view shows the main components of a smartphone.

These illustrations suit picture books: Easy on the eyes, lots of details, a view not possible (or atleast not usual) in real world. You can go back numerous times and search for details you hadn’t noticed before – or then just wonder at the fresh perspective.

When looking at cutaway illustrations from visual/verbal narrative point of view, they are almost always primarily visual and the verbal part is selective and sparse. They first need to work as an illustration and have all the info needed at its place before texts are added. However they might look rather naked without text.

Looking at structures

Can a cutaway illustration be the main structural factor of a book? Can a book be built around a cutaway, anatomy illustration or an exploded view? Yes it can.

*Hospital: The Inside Story* by Dr. Christle Nwora & Ginnie Hsu (Illustrator), 2022

Hospital: The Inside Story walks you through a hospital and its different wards in one day – it’s like a cutaway in the form of a book. All the wards, their purposes, their crew, equipment and actions are shown.

*Pyramid* by David Macaulay (Author & Illustrator), 1975

David Macaulay has made numerous impressive books where he dives deep into how things, machines or even entire buildings work. Pyramid is full of different sorts of cutaway illustrations on the construction and use of ancient Egyptian pyramids. Macaulay has a way to combine cutaway illustrations to beautiful full-bleed pictures – all black and white in Pyramid‘s case.

Cutaway illustrations are the second 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 mostly originated; with 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?

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?