an emerging philosophy, practice, and process

that seeks to merge storytelling and strategy through
collective inquiry and collaborative creation

 

The Philosophy

I’ve spent the past decade creating information graphics and data visualizations for clients around the world in many different forms (illustrations, textbooks, reports, live captures, animations, visual languages, you name it!). Each project is unique, but one thing has proven itself true every time: visual stories that “stick” emerge from collective participation in the creative process. What this really means is that I need your help, and it may take more work from you and your team than you expected to arrive at something great. Furthermore, the practice of collective inquiry that is required to formulate a compelling story is what empowers organizations to act strategically.

I honor the trust that teams put in my hands when working with me by approaching the work with my values of integrity, curiosity, inclusion, and play. These values in action look like: 

  • Respecting your expertise. Nobody knows your data and the story that needs to be told better than the people on your team. I usually go into new projects with very little background knowledge of your industry and data– my expertise is in visual storytelling, strategy, and graphic facilitation. 

  • Connecting the dots. The best stories are crafted with the following ingredients (which I help you to gather): 

    • Rich data (qualitative or quantitative) rooted in a strong analysis / point of view

    • Individual stories, anecdotes, ideas and perspectives from the people involved in the project and data

    • The forest (big picture vision) AND the trees (small details, anecdotes, etc)

    • Agreement on what needs this story and supporting visuals will help fulfill 

    • Commitment to embrace the playful and experimental nature of this process

  • Meeting people where they are. At the end of the process, we aim to deliver a narrative and visual story that incorporates insights from the unique perspectives of every team member. Our goal is for everyone on your team to see themselves in the story and use the visuals to communicate their unique understanding of the data. We craft visual forms that depict just the right level of detail to allow folks to either focus on the big picture, or dive into the details. 

  • Making space for play.  It’s not easy to carve out space to be creative when you have a thousand other demands on your time. But, whenever my clients commit to the work and wrangle their people to play and imagine together, they come away with far more than a visual-- they end up with a shared understanding and visual language to lean on as they move in alignment towards their goals.

 

THE Process

DEFINE SUCCESS

Before any project, we like to get very clear about what success looks and feels like throughout the project

 

  • We use a Success Spectrum template developed from our friends at Faster Than 20 to facilitate this conversation

  • We like to involve key team members from your organization who will be using the visual stories the most — their input into what success looks and feels like for them will be our guide posts on the journey

 

Review Your Data

Let’s gather and look at your data! We will spend time on our own sifting through the details and present back our understanding of the content to make sure we are tracking.

 

Data could be:

  • A report or study

  • Spreadsheet(s) and statistics

  • A presentation you are working on 

  • A collection of facts that you are trying to organize into a narrative 

 

Dig Deeper

Time for more perspective! We can gather this through 1:1 interviews, facilitated group discussions, focus groups, surveys / worksheets, or a combination of formats.

 

We’ll work with you to identify the best format to dig into questions like…

  • Who is your audience? What questions do they have about this topic? How do they like to receive information? 

  • What will this visual form and language help you to do?

  • What wild ideas have you dreamed up in the past about how to bring this information to life?

 

Map Your Story

We’ll start by crafting a rough outline of a narrative using words to make sure we understand the essence of the story.

In most cases, we’re working remotely and continue to develop the story in our shared virtual idea space. The vibe is kind of like we’re in a room together moving sticky notes around a whiteboard.

Image Research

We’re always looking out for examples of our work and others that model excellent visual storytelling.

 

Throughout the entire process, we will be gathering and organizing relevant visual forms or storytelling devices that can serve as inspiration. These images will live in a shared virtual idea space that your team can add their own examples to.

 

Have an Idea Party

Using this written outline, we’ll facilitate a process to throw out as many ideas for visual forms as possible

 

  • Ideally we do this with a group of your team members contributing their own sketches or descriptions of visual forms

  • We’ll iterate once or twice and figure out which ideas have the most energy and excitement 

  • From there, our team will iterate on the best ideas to refine the concepts

Pick your Forms

It’s usually clear from the SFD party which ideas have the most potential. Our team will interrogate these further in this stage.

  • We will present you with 2-3 distinct approaches for a visual form that we have refined from the shitty first drafts

  • You’ll tell us what you like, build on the ideas, and help to identify the best path forward

 

Build a visual language

Once we have a path forward, we’ll run with that idea and continue building out our story.

 

  • The most crucial part of this step in the process is defining and refining our visual language. We will make some decisions for how we can use visual encoding tools like color, texture, shape, size, and position to embed specific meaning to reinforce the message.

  • Depending on the timeline and budget, we will share intermittent progress with you and incorporate your feedback along the way.

 

Try it on

Sometimes you need to sit with an idea or shop a few variations around your organization to see what’s resonating.

 

If we’re working on a narrative or visual that you know people will need to deliver in their own words, it can be helpful to give them time to try it out to uncover any issues or additional needs.

Bring it all together

At this point, we’ve got a narrative, key visual forms, and a visual language estasblished. From here, we will use this to craft a series of static diagrams, charts, infographics, or illustrations or some combination of these things.

 

We’ll pore over the details to refine our visuals and deliver them to you either embedded into a presentation or as individual image files.

 

Wouldn’t it be great if…

Sometimes a series of static visuals is all you need! But throughout the process we’ll be keeping track of different ways that these visuals will be used and considering the best ways to deliver your message. 

 

Depending on your audience and program needs, we can bring these static visuals to life through an animation, interactive experiences, trainings and workshops, print materials, live performances, or any other way we dream up together in our process. We’ll find out what modalities excite you the most and map out what would be needed in order to make that happen. 

 
 
 

Questions?

If you’d like to learn more, please reach out to our team via email!