New Challenges for Data Design

The present work provides a platform for leading Data designers whose vision and creativity help us to anticipate major changes occurring in the Data Design field, and pre-empt the future. Each of them strives to provide new answers to the question, “What challenges await Data Design?” To avoid falling into too narrow a mind-set, each works hard to elucidate the breadth of Data Design today and to demonstrate its widespread application across a variety of business sectors. With end users in mind, designer-contributors bring to light the myriad of purposes for which the field was originally intended, forging the bond even further between Data Design and the aims and intentions of those who contribute to it. The first seven parts of the book outline the scope of Data Design, and presents a line-up of “viewpoints” that highlight this discipline’s main topics, and offers an in-depth look into practices boasting both foresight and imagination. The eighth and final part features a series of interviews with Data designers and artists whose methods embody originality and marked singularity.

As a result, a number of enlightening concepts and bright ideas unfold within the confines of this book to help dispel the thick fog around this new and still relatively unknown discipline. A plethora of equally eye-opening and edifying new terms, words, and key expressions also unfurl. Informing, influencing, and inspiring are just a few of the buzz words belonging to an initiative that is, first and foremost, a creative one, not to mention the possibility to discern the ever-changing and naturally complex nature of today’s datasphere.

Providing an invaluable and cutting-edge resource for design researchers, this work is also intended for students, professionals and practitioners involved in Data Design, Interaction Design, Digital & Media Design, Data & Information Visualization, Computer Science and Engineering.

Designer and founder of the FXDESIGNSTUDIO digital design agency, and also Associate Professor at the University of Valenciennes and Hainaut-Cambresis (FRANCE), Dr. David Bihanic is of the rising generation of design professionals for whom originality refers specifically to their (learning and professional) transversal path. Dr. D. Bihanic is presently Head of the Master’s degree in Digital Design and Vice-Director of the laboratory CALHISTE (Culture, Arts/Design, Literature, History of Societies and Foreign Territories).

Dr. D. Bihanic examines the new paradigms of information visualization and manipulation of large and complex rich databases – it deals with recent design attempts in order to present multi-dimensional data graphically by mapping data and properties to different visual shapes, colors, and positions (e.g. experimental works which investigate novel ways of exploring information).

Dr. D. Bihanic have been working as information designer at Thomson France R&D center. Through this experience, he received the expert status for his studies of systems dealing with the handling and processing of media covered information. Today, his research is mainly centered upon new “end-user” interfaces (map-like, tangible, relationship-based interfaces, etc.). Author of several papers relating to the new stakes of design, Dr D. Bihanic takes an active part in the evolution and transformations occurring in this field.

List of authors:

Ali Almossawi Mozilla Corporation, San Francisco, CA, USA
David Bihanic CALHISTE Laboratory, University of Valenciennes and Hainaut-Cambresis, Valenciennes, France
Rachel Binx Walnut, CA, USA
Arlene Birt Background Stories, Ames, IA, USA
Alberto Cairo University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA
Andy Cameron New York, NY, USA
Giorgio Caviglia Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Dino Citraro Periscopic, Portland, OR, USA
Nicholas Felton New York, NY, USA
Steffen Fiedler Studio NAND, Berlin, Germany
Fabien Girardin Near Future Laboratory, Sierre, Switzerland
Wesley Grubbs Pitch Interactive, Berkeley, CA, USA
Jonathan Harris New York, NY, USA
Sha Hwang Walnut, CA, USA
Jonas Loh Studio NAND, Berlin, Germany
Giorgia Lupi Accurat, New York, NY, USA
Pablo Martinez-Diez Tech (UPC), Barcelona, Spain; BAU Design College of Barcelona, Universitat de Vic (UVIC), Barcelona, Spain
Scott Murray University of San Francisco (USF), San Francisco, CA, USA
Santiago Ortiz Moebio, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Stefanie Posavec London, UK
Kim Rees Periscopic, Portland, OR, USA
Mar Santamaria-Varas School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB), Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Moritz Stefaner Lilienthal, Germany
Stephan Thiel Studio NAND, Berlin, Germany
Jan Willem Tulp TULP Interactive, The Hague, The Netherlands
Giorgio Uboldi Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Richard Vijgen Richard Vijgen Studio, GT, Arnhem, The Netherlands
Christopher Warnow Wuerzburg, Bavaria, Germany
Benjamin Wiederkehr Interactive Things, Zurich, Switzerland
Ben Willers Lincoln, UK