One year at Sheldon.studio in data

Who designs the designers' data?

We had always joked about making an annual report of our work. But by the time we committed to it, our data was scattered in bits and pieces.

So we decided to visualize the real, messy stuff: the code, the pixels, the clutter of emails, where people viewed our projects from, and the music we played while making them. Here it is: the organised chaos of a year in a design studio.

It's like Inception

How do you visualize a year of data design through data design? We told the story of our three largest projects of 2020 through their metadata, with a Sheldon touch.

That's why, among other quirky visualizations, you'll find the vinyl collection we listened to in 2020: a year of good vibes that kept us company through lockdown.

Going data porn all the way

Digging into our own data, we realised how many data points were impossible to collect accurately, and how many were simply misleading. Some of our biggest projects came down to a few lines of code. Would it make sense to represent them with so little? Nope.

Using attractive visualizations that tell inaccurate stories is what we call data porn, and we avoid it. This time, though, we used it on purpose, to show that data can lie.

What is data porn? A word for visualizations that look great but, on a closer look, don't give an accurate picture of the data.

The numbers don't lie? That's one of the biggest myths about data, and our first annual report set out to debunk it.

Don't believe the data hype

If data is the new oil, we need to take its side effects seriously. Partial or inaccurate data can paint a very misleading picture, often with harmful consequences.

Before making decisions based on data, ask where it comes from, how and by whom it was collected, who it represents and who it leaves out. Our annual report was a playful project, but we hope it raises awareness of data literacy and data quality.

Data to tell, honestly?

A good chart shows what the data says, and what it doesn't. Do you need to visualize your data too? We're here.