Observe, Collect, Draw! offers 160 illustrated pages that the reader/user/journalist fills out with the minutiae of their life in data and drawings. Inspired by the creative process and popular success of Dear Data, it is a guided journal that offers a fresh approach to self-examination.
Pentagram partner Giorgia Lupi and collaborator Stefanie Posavec created their second book to invite others to discover the delights of using data as a tool for observation, self-discovery, and communication. Observe is a visual journal for a general audience that describes how to collect and visualize data from everyday life. A guided diary, it teaches the user how to notice and record day-to-day happenings and minutiae in a unique visual language of their own devising.
Sections provide instructions on “learning to see,” “observing, collecting, drawing,” and “crafting your visual language.” In addition to pages on such typical journal subjects as “Emotions,” “My travels,” and “Beauty,” it invites the user to track data on more unusual topics like “What my camera sees,” “Feeling confident,” “My inbox and “My closet!” And rather than convert the notations to numbers or charts, the book teaches how to develop an original graphic language and use data as a medium of creative expression.
Observe, Collect, Draw! is geared toward people interested in self-improvement, curious about personal data collection, looking to expand their creative outlets, or learning a different way of drawing. It is published by Princeton Architectural Press, and is available on Amazon and at local independent bookstores.
