The idea for this project comes from a project called Dear Data--designed by two women, Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, two information designers living on different sides of the Atlantic.

In their own words, "Each week, and for a year, we collected and measured a particular type of data about our lives, used this data to make a drawing on a postcard-sized sheet of paper, and then dropped the postcard in an English “postbox” (Stefanie) or an American “mailbox” (Giorgia)!"

Check out the Dear Data Project online to see the results.

STEP 1: Consider some topics you'd really like to collect data about--things that affect you, personally. If you'd like to collect information on how many times per day you think about a particular topic or you feel a certain way or you laugh or you interact with others--all topics that you can collect data about will be considered successful. You may be shocked at how useful this data could be if you made it public. Make a list of three topics--ranked in order of how much you like each of the three topics and three types of data you want to collect about each topic. We'll discuss your ideas together on May 13 / 14. (You'll receive 15 points for simply having your list.)

On your list, include your ranking and the data you plan to collect if you use that topic. For example:

1. Connections = people I connect with, how we connect, and how the connection made me feel
2. Time = how I spend my time, what I would rather being doing with my time, how I feel about spending time on these activities
3. Food = what I eat, how often I eat, how I feel about what I'm eating

The examples I just listed are incredibly basic and I'm sure you can come up with better ones, but hopefully they'll help you see how this will work on a foundational level.

STEP 2: Start collecting data right away. This may be hard at first because you'll need to work out how detailed you want your collection to be and it might not be as straight forward as you had thought or you may want to include more than you expected in your collection.

So, for example, if I wanted to collect data on the number of times I interact with others I could start on a Sunday and make a list of each person I talk to and how we communicate every single time we communicate for seven days--a full week. (The only time-based rule is that you need at least seven days in your sample size.) I would also collect data about how we connected (phone call, text, particularly social media, in person, etc.), and after we've closed our connection I might reflect on how that made me feel. Again, this could be harder than you expect to lock in details that you'll be able to visualize later. And again, this is just a simple example--I'm sure you can make yours much better and more personal.

STEP 3: Make a visual representation of your data without using any common means of charting data. No boring pie charts, bar graphs, etc. The hardest part of this project is taking the data you've collected and visually representing it in a way that is both fresh and understandable to a wide audience. Show others. See if they understand it as well as you do. And, in the end, you'll also want to create a legend of sorts to help a wider audience glean meaningful data from your project.

When you make your final piece it does not need to be on the computer. If you think it would be helpful or fun to use the Adobe software, go for it! But if you prefer to make it with analog tools (pencil, markers, paper, paint, etc.), that's also acceptable! There are no size restrictions as long as you can fit it into the room to share with us in person and as long as you can make it into a file that's sharable on Google Drive or Schoology.

Remember that your final piece is due on Friday, June 4.

Please don't hesitate to connect with me when you're struggling or when you have questions. Excited to see what you make!