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Data visualisations made by Italian designers are considered of an extreme high standard. The composition, the level of complexity, but especially the beauty of the design are world class. Federica Fragapane is one of the young and talented designers and illustrators from Italy. In this two day workshop she will focus on the elegance of a data visualisation.

The training will guide the participants through all the phases of a data visualization project. Special attention will be on the design of a visual narrative. We will be focusing on the participants’ interests and inclinations, both on the contents and on the visual aspects in order to create a clear, visually appealing (hand drawn) visualization.

Plenty of time will be dedicated to the refinement phase: the participants will be guided to work on all the visual details and stylistic touches that can have a relevant role in the creation of an effective and elegant data visualization. Participants will also be invited to apply the skills and lessons learnt to a project of their own, that they will be guided to redesign and refine with a fresh point of view.

Course description

The first day of the training participants start with modelling a dataset in clay. They will be invited to experiment with shapes and 3D visual models, so they are ready to come back to the 2D data visualization phase with fresh and new points of view and ideas.

The main individual activity of the training starts in the afternoon: participants will be offered some datasets to choose from, according to their personal interests and inclinations. The training will guide them in selecting the data and the story that they’re interested in communicating. Participants will then sketch their ideas on paper and – after having defined their new visual alphabet, made by shapes and colors – will hand-draw the first draft of a data visualization.

The second day will be focused on the relevance of the visual refinement phase. Participants will be invited to test their visualization and re-look at them with a new and fresh point of view. This refinement phase will help them in finding those elements and details that can have a significant role in the creation of an effective and elegant visual narrative.

At the last afternoon of the training, participants will be invited to apply the skills and lessons learnt to a project of their own, that they will be guided to redesign and refine, with a new perspective.

The following topics will be covered:

• introduction to data visualization
• case studies and examples of data visualization projects
• from data to visual alphabets
• the role of visual inspiration
• data sculpture
• definition of custom visual models
• designing elegance
• the importance of details
• critical analysis of previous works
• redesigning a visualization through new points of view