WEBVTT NOTE Podcast: Data Stories Episode: Formalizing Design with Gabrielle Mérite and Alan Wilson Publishing Date: 2023-03-08T13:40:01+01:00 Podcast URL: https://datastori.es Episode URL: https://datastori.es/170-formalizing-design-with-gabrielle-merite-and-alan-wilson/ 00:00:00.515 --> 00:00:04.037 Especially when we make guidelines that are going to be used potentially by 00:00:04.037 --> 00:00:07.819 hundreds of people, we have such a responsibility to do them properly. 00:00:28.031 --> 00:00:32.674 Hi everyone, welcome to a new episode of Data Stories. My name is Moritz Stefano 00:00:32.674 --> 00:00:34.935 and I'm an independent designer of data visualizations. 00:00:35.776 --> 00:00:39.757 In fact, I work as a self-employed truth and beauty operator out of my office 00:00:39.757 --> 00:00:41.698 here in the countryside in the north of Germany. 00:00:42.499 --> 00:00:46.280 And usually I record this podcast together with Enrico Bertini, 00:00:46.280 --> 00:00:50.462 who is a professor at Northeastern University in Boston. But today I'm solo. 00:00:51.142 --> 00:00:55.804 But luckily I'm joined by two guests today, which you will hear about in a minute. 00:00:56.405 --> 00:01:00.846 Just in terms of introductions, on this podcast, we talk about data visualization, 00:01:00.846 --> 00:01:04.348 data analysis, and generally the role data plays in our lives. 00:01:04.348 --> 00:01:08.700 The topic today is data design themes, design systems, style guides, 00:01:08.700 --> 00:01:10.130 guidelines, design languages. 00:01:10.491 --> 00:01:15.633 You can already see there's a whole cosmos of new formats emerging here in this 00:01:15.633 --> 00:01:21.195 space that we want to explore together today. And hopefully you'll learn something new. 00:01:21.816 --> 00:01:24.889 And it's an exciting new emerging field. 00:01:27.173 --> 00:01:30.294 I hope we can shed a bit of light on these mysterious terms. 00:01:31.274 --> 00:01:35.335 Before we dive right in, just a quick note, our podcast is listener supported. 00:01:35.675 --> 00:01:40.917 We don't have any ads. So if you enjoy the show, you might consider supporting 00:01:40.917 --> 00:01:45.439 us. You can do this with recurring payments on patreon.com slash data stories. 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:50.251 So then there's a little donation you do every time we publish an episode. 00:01:50.601 --> 00:01:55.302 Or you could also send us one time donations on paypal.me slash data stories. 00:01:55.302 --> 00:01:59.584 It's always much appreciated, also small amounts. It just keeps us going. 00:01:59.584 --> 00:02:04.806 And we also have a bit of cost, so any contribution you can make is super appreciated. 00:02:05.546 --> 00:02:12.708 If you don't have or don't want to do monetary support, you can also just support 00:02:12.708 --> 00:02:14.729 us on social media or give us a good rating. 00:02:15.349 --> 00:02:18.230 Anything helps. And if not, it's also fine. Just keep listening. 00:02:18.771 --> 00:02:20.211 Anyways, let's get started. 00:02:21.091 --> 00:02:27.814 Let's dive right in. And now I can reveal our guests. our guests today are Gabrielle and Alain. Hi. 00:02:27.814 --> 00:02:28.714 Hi, Moritz. 00:02:28.714 --> 00:02:33.756 Hello. Thanks for joining me. Quick introduction. So Gabrielle, 00:02:33.756 --> 00:02:35.757 can you tell us a bit about yourself? 00:02:35.757 --> 00:02:41.840 Yeah. Hi, I'm Gabrielle Merite. I'm French. I'm an independent information designer. 00:02:41.840 --> 00:02:47.142 So I help ethically driven organization uncover important truth and share stories 00:02:47.142 --> 00:02:49.523 with intention backed by data. 00:02:50.303 --> 00:02:56.446 And I'm also currently, for another month, the senior DeDeviz designer at Pentagram 00:02:56.446 --> 00:02:58.386 in the team of Georgia Alubi. 00:02:58.386 --> 00:03:02.248 Which we also had on the show a few times and who's of course well known. 00:03:03.088 --> 00:03:05.649 And yeah, it's exciting to see you two work together. 00:03:05.810 --> 00:03:07.270 Yeah, the incredible Georgia. 00:03:09.911 --> 00:03:10.751 Ellen, how about you? 00:03:11.832 --> 00:03:14.952 Yeah, I'm Alan Wilson. I'm a principal designer at Adobe. 00:03:16.910 --> 00:03:22.232 Where I work primarily on the experience cloud, which is Adobe's enterprise 00:03:22.232 --> 00:03:28.694 business. We make marketing software and other tools to help large organizations 00:03:28.694 --> 00:03:31.795 keep their messaging and help their customers. 00:03:32.716 --> 00:03:38.358 And I guess the main thing that we'll be discussing today is my contributions 00:03:38.358 --> 00:03:41.879 to the design system at Adobe, which is called Spectrum. Right. 00:03:41.879 --> 00:03:47.831 Yes. And this is also how we got in touch around two years ago because I started 00:03:47.831 --> 00:03:53.153 working together with Core, an agency in the UK on a design system for the World Health Organization. 00:03:53.483 --> 00:04:00.965 And yeah, and we sort of uncovered this whole world of wow, there's so much 00:04:00.965 --> 00:04:02.006 happening in this space. 00:04:02.006 --> 00:04:06.507 And it's also really hard to orient yourself. Like it sounds so easy if somebody 00:04:06.507 --> 00:04:10.249 says, oh, we need some database style guide or guidelines. 00:04:10.249 --> 00:04:12.569 Can you help us do that? You know, everybody's like, yeah, sure, 00:04:12.569 --> 00:04:16.751 that sounds great. And then once you look into, oh, what do we do? 00:04:16.751 --> 00:04:20.392 What do we actually do now? What do we offer? What's the format? 00:04:20.893 --> 00:04:24.234 What's the scope of the whole project? You realize, oh, it's not even that clear. 00:04:24.234 --> 00:04:28.156 And everybody needs to figure out what they're doing in that space. 00:04:29.396 --> 00:04:34.058 And so, yeah, so there's so many flavors and approaches you can do. 00:04:34.058 --> 00:04:39.120 And so, yeah, I got in touch with you, Alan, and a few other folks who have 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:44.002 experience in the field to help us guide along a bit. And here we are. 00:04:46.703 --> 00:04:50.004 So I know both of you have been working on these types of projects. 00:04:50.004 --> 00:04:54.686 So before we go into all the nuances, what the differences between different 00:04:54.686 --> 00:04:58.768 subgenres are, maybe we can start with the purpose. 00:04:58.768 --> 00:05:02.809 What, in your experience, do people hope to achieve when they start building 00:05:02.809 --> 00:05:03.810 a design style guide or start formulating design guidelines? 00:05:03.810 --> 00:05:08.572 Building a design style guide or start formulating design guidelines. 00:05:08.992 --> 00:05:12.729 What do you think? What's the hope connected to that? Or what's the value to 00:05:12.729 --> 00:05:15.175 an organization to have something like that? 00:05:15.935 --> 00:05:22.878 I guess I'll go first. I think the main value is answering questions, right? 00:05:23.918 --> 00:05:28.700 As organizations grow, you have to coordinate a lot more to make sure that you 00:05:28.700 --> 00:05:31.061 as a group have a coordinated voice. 00:05:31.061 --> 00:05:37.543 Space. Questions are very common, right? What font should I use? 00:05:37.543 --> 00:05:39.164 What are our standard colors? 00:05:39.504 --> 00:05:42.985 How do we lay out this particular document type? 00:05:46.067 --> 00:05:49.748 People need standards to communicate in a unified way. 00:05:51.469 --> 00:05:55.971 One of the things I like about this space is there's just such a broad range 00:05:55.971 --> 00:05:59.556 as you already touched on of ways to answer those questions. 00:06:00.237 --> 00:06:01.839 But for me, it's all about. 00:06:02.821 --> 00:06:08.603 Helping people do their jobs more effectively and efficiently by answering questions 00:06:08.603 --> 00:06:10.623 that they have a difficult time answering on their own. 00:06:10.623 --> 00:06:11.524 Mm-hmm. 00:06:11.524 --> 00:06:12.544 I love that answer. 00:06:14.145 --> 00:06:16.546 Yeah, that seems pretty comprehensive already. 00:06:16.546 --> 00:06:20.427 Yeah, I had a way more like strict like dot list. Yeah. 00:06:21.407 --> 00:06:27.950 But I love that answer of answering question because I think it answers a lot on the definition. 00:06:28.570 --> 00:06:33.452 I see, on mine, I kind of see like four kind of point of values. 00:06:35.132 --> 00:06:38.614 Efficiency, just the idea of answering questions faster. 00:06:39.514 --> 00:06:43.815 So just people being able to reuse design to know what to do. 00:06:44.336 --> 00:06:46.096 All these things come into efficiency. 00:06:48.637 --> 00:06:51.578 Consistency, which I think is the one that people don't always see. 00:06:51.578 --> 00:06:56.320 But for an organization, being able to reproduce a design over and over or reuse 00:06:56.320 --> 00:07:00.942 some time of... set of rules and principle that they can build upon, scale. 00:07:01.962 --> 00:07:04.123 And I think Alan is going to know that more than me. 00:07:06.424 --> 00:07:11.225 And then the one that I don't see often, but to add pentagram in my work that's 00:07:11.225 --> 00:07:12.446 been pretty important, which is recognizability. 00:07:15.227 --> 00:07:18.668 So in those guidelines in Style Guide, the idea of being able to produce something 00:07:18.668 --> 00:07:21.829 that is recognized by an audience, like brand them. 00:07:22.250 --> 00:07:25.891 And we don't talk about that often in data viz, but that's really important 00:07:25.891 --> 00:07:27.691 to me when creating style guides. 00:07:27.691 --> 00:07:33.574 Yeah. Yeah. And in the like more branding and PR and advertising world, 00:07:33.574 --> 00:07:35.674 brand guidelines are super common, right? 00:07:35.674 --> 00:07:39.156 And often we just receive them as, oh, here are our brand guidelines. 00:07:39.156 --> 00:07:42.717 Can you make sure the charts, you know, fit into that? 00:07:42.717 --> 00:07:48.299 Right. And so, yeah, that's already where we touch these wider like communication 00:07:48.299 --> 00:07:52.440 contexts. But in this world, it's very common to have like a big book with the 00:07:52.440 --> 00:07:55.507 fonts we use, these are the colors we have. This is how we pick photos. 00:07:55.929 --> 00:07:58.816 You don't crop photos like this, you crop them like that and so on. 00:07:58.816 --> 00:08:02.645 And yeah, I think in database it's a bit more new that we would, 00:08:03.314 --> 00:08:07.536 be so explicit about this is our approach, right? Yeah. 00:08:07.536 --> 00:08:12.158 I think one of the reasons data is emerging more and more in the style guide 00:08:12.158 --> 00:08:15.499 space is because people are using it more and they have more questions about it. 00:08:16.780 --> 00:08:20.341 So we're traditionally style guides focused on how you use the logo and how 00:08:20.341 --> 00:08:24.042 you use photography and other visuals to communicate. 00:08:24.422 --> 00:08:28.124 People are using charts to communicate and they have questions about how to best do that. 00:08:28.124 --> 00:08:33.506 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a natural evolution of us actually mattering, which is good. 00:08:33.506 --> 00:08:38.767 Yeah, precisely. And there's this idea of like, you know, authority. 00:08:39.588 --> 00:08:44.229 I think in the world where trust is hard to gain, for organizations that have 00:08:44.229 --> 00:08:47.771 gained that trust or are trying to gain that trust, having that recognizability 00:08:47.771 --> 00:08:54.263 of like, oh, this specific data visualization is coming from this institution that I'm familiar with. 00:08:54.573 --> 00:08:57.534 And I can recognize that a very first look seems really important. 00:08:58.635 --> 00:08:59.975 In the public discourse. 00:08:59.975 --> 00:09:05.358 Yeah. Cool. So I think we have the motivation is clear. 00:09:05.358 --> 00:09:09.640 So you want consistency, you want a scale design, you want to make sure all 00:09:09.640 --> 00:09:12.801 outputs coming from one source have a minimum level of quality, 00:09:12.801 --> 00:09:17.323 they're recognizable, they look from the same family at least. 00:09:21.426 --> 00:09:27.178 And not have to be a mysterious process process that some gifted rock star designers 00:09:27.178 --> 00:09:31.149 can only do, but sort of scale the capability to anybody. 00:09:32.890 --> 00:09:36.552 Ideally, right, that, oh, with the right ruleset and the right tools and the 00:09:36.552 --> 00:09:41.134 right building blocks, anybody can now make a chart that looks like coming from 00:09:41.134 --> 00:09:42.854 that organization and is solid. 00:09:45.387 --> 00:09:49.429 That's the hope. It's a big goal, of course. But now we're looking into, 00:09:49.429 --> 00:09:51.110 okay, how can we enable that? 00:09:51.110 --> 00:09:56.352 What are the things we can supply? And this is super crucial to be clear about that. 00:09:56.352 --> 00:10:01.374 That's a trap I ran into in a few projects that we weren't really clear what 00:10:01.374 --> 00:10:05.636 the difference is between a style guide or a guidelines or a component system. 00:10:05.636 --> 00:10:09.417 System. I like all these things. And then you realize, oh, they actually wanted 00:10:09.417 --> 00:10:13.839 to have a big book with lots of data with do's and don'ts. 00:10:13.839 --> 00:10:17.241 And we were like, oh, we thought we're just designing a database theme, 00:10:17.241 --> 00:10:19.181 like pick some colors, right. 00:10:19.181 --> 00:10:24.263 And so there's a whole spectrum of possible outputs you can have, right. 00:10:24.263 --> 00:10:27.885 And maybe let's talk about a few of them. 00:10:27.885 --> 00:10:32.747 And I try to organize it from small to big. So I think the smallest thing is 00:10:32.747 --> 00:10:37.570 probably like a design theme, where you say like, these are the colors and fonts 00:10:37.570 --> 00:10:41.051 you can use for a given charge or something like this. 00:10:41.852 --> 00:10:45.734 And maybe a brand has multiple themes like a light theme and a dark theme. 00:10:46.495 --> 00:10:51.037 It's like a skin you can apply to a chart like an Excel template type thing maybe. 00:10:52.658 --> 00:10:57.880 Then the next step is maybe a design system. Alan, is Spectrum a design system? 00:10:58.221 --> 00:10:59.661 Where's Spectrum on that ladder? 00:10:59.661 --> 00:11:04.384 Yeah, Spectrum is a design system and I would put it further down, 00:11:04.384 --> 00:11:06.565 maybe even at the very bottom. 00:11:06.565 --> 00:11:09.907 At the bottom. I'm also in the bottom. 00:11:09.907 --> 00:11:10.207 Yeah. 00:11:13.099 --> 00:11:16.260 When I think design system, I think the difference between 00:11:16.260 --> 00:11:19.201 a design system and a style guide or a theme 00:11:19.201 --> 00:11:24.663 or just a set of guidelines is a design system has infrastructure behind it 00:11:24.663 --> 00:11:31.646 So that when you make a change those changes roll out into all the places that 00:11:31.646 --> 00:11:37.988 they need to maybe there's also software components that exactly implement that stuff and Yeah, 00:11:37.988 --> 00:11:42.970 yeah And it provides resources for all parties that are involved. 00:11:42.970 --> 00:11:46.091 So the designers get the design assets they need, 00:11:46.091 --> 00:11:50.123 the engineers have the engineering components that they're going to use, 00:11:50.123 --> 00:11:55.575 and anyone else in the organization has the guidelines and materials, 00:11:55.575 --> 00:11:58.496 templates, things they need to do their work. 00:11:59.556 --> 00:12:04.858 And so, okay, cool. So we have design themes, automated in the design system, 00:12:04.858 --> 00:12:05.738 and super well documented. 00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:09.200 So then how about guidelines and style guides? 00:12:09.940 --> 00:12:14.062 How does that fit in? I don't know how Alan feels about it to me. 00:12:14.062 --> 00:12:18.803 So I work hard on that one. I was like, is there a difference between guidelines and style guides? 00:12:19.424 --> 00:12:23.225 And I think we use it pretty freely in the design world. 00:12:23.225 --> 00:12:27.927 It kind of, we use it, at least in the, you know, bright side of things, 00:12:27.927 --> 00:12:30.488 we use it kind of like whatever, we can exchange them. 00:12:30.488 --> 00:12:33.649 However, I could see a difference where for me, like one guideline could be 00:12:33.649 --> 00:12:38.390 like do and don'ts versus a style guide is kind of putting all those guidelines together. 00:12:39.551 --> 00:12:43.753 So to me, style guide is a collection of rule. You know, it tells you what you're 00:12:43.753 --> 00:12:46.153 allowed to do and not to do given a context. 00:12:48.465 --> 00:12:52.056 And I guess I'm going to go one step further, but there's to me, 00:12:52.056 --> 00:12:56.177 the style guide, if you think about, if you remove style and you just keep guide, 00:12:56.177 --> 00:13:00.979 then you can also include elements of voice again, to that branding element. 00:13:00.979 --> 00:13:04.700 So not just doing dance on design, on color choices, but yes, 00:13:04.700 --> 00:13:07.621 on tonality, on content, on way 00:13:07.621 --> 00:13:12.443 more than just the look and feel and the practicality of design elements. 00:13:12.443 --> 00:13:15.044 So that's how I see the difference in guideline and style guides, 00:13:15.044 --> 00:13:18.765 but in the design world, we definitely use them almost as exchangeable. 00:13:19.466 --> 00:13:22.787 And that part cannot be automated or implemented well in software, 00:13:22.787 --> 00:13:25.847 right? Like, how do you automate tonality? 00:13:27.269 --> 00:13:33.891 Can you? I don't know. But at least, let's say, a style guide or design guidelines 00:13:33.891 --> 00:13:38.113 are usually targeted at people making charts. Right? Is that fair to say? 00:13:38.113 --> 00:13:41.674 I mean, I think all of these are targeted at people making charts. 00:13:41.674 --> 00:13:47.116 But to Gabriel's point, some focus more on the aesthetic part of the problems 00:13:47.116 --> 00:13:48.376 and the aesthetic questions. 00:13:48.817 --> 00:13:54.338 And others focus on the technical questions and implementations and things and 00:13:54.338 --> 00:13:55.859 systemize things a bit more. 00:13:55.859 --> 00:13:56.159 More. 00:13:59.220 --> 00:14:04.161 Yeah, so you can see already, it's this muddy mess of people, 00:14:04.161 --> 00:14:05.061 machines, data, audiences. 00:14:08.963 --> 00:14:12.965 It's an exciting space. And then really think about, okay, how can we abstract 00:14:12.965 --> 00:14:17.246 principles there and re-covering rules and not just solve problems once, 00:14:17.246 --> 00:14:22.568 but more or less for once and all, which is of course the hard part. 00:14:23.588 --> 00:14:27.370 It's funny because it reminds me of what Alan was saying about the design system. 00:14:29.090 --> 00:14:33.185 So at least just like Alain had placed it at the end, to me it's what encompasses 00:14:33.185 --> 00:14:37.193 everything, including Style Guide, but also design theme, design language, 00:14:37.193 --> 00:14:41.815 like the actual components and little design elements, like templates that you may have created. 00:14:42.535 --> 00:14:47.897 And I would call it a repository of institutional knowledge that solves problems, 00:14:47.897 --> 00:14:51.058 that keeps happening. Like that's how I would define it probably without even 00:14:51.058 --> 00:14:52.618 putting like what it is inside. 00:14:53.619 --> 00:14:58.941 It's just a big, big, big repository and it can be flexible depending on your institution. 00:14:58.941 --> 00:15:00.702 Yeah, right. 00:15:00.702 --> 00:15:09.366 Yeah. I think another thing worth calling out is that sometimes data visualization is its own thing. 00:15:09.366 --> 00:15:13.488 There is a datavis style guide, and it lives up separate from the brand guide 00:15:13.488 --> 00:15:16.759 and the user interface guidelines and other resources. 00:15:18.611 --> 00:15:23.213 But more and more, we're seeing all three of those things. And other things as well come to, 00:15:35.319 --> 00:15:37.799 content guidelines in important ways that we need to account for. 00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:38.399 Yeah. Yeah. 00:15:40.208 --> 00:15:45.070 Yeah, so there's a lot of overlaps with adjacent, maybe other design systems, 00:15:45.070 --> 00:15:49.952 like the branding or the UI design, and we need to see how we fit in with all of that. 00:15:51.213 --> 00:15:56.955 I guess what's unique to data visualization is often the extra design vocabulary you need, 00:15:56.955 --> 00:16:02.557 like specific color scales that work, have certain functional properties or 00:16:02.557 --> 00:16:09.400 or chart types and all the things we're all familiar with, legends and axes and whatnot. 00:16:10.600 --> 00:16:14.882 Yeah, one of the challenges with writing guidelines for data is that differs 00:16:14.882 --> 00:16:21.564 from brand guidelines and others is some of the other areas are just self-evident 00:16:21.564 --> 00:16:23.645 and really easy to explain the guidelines for. 00:16:24.266 --> 00:16:29.207 And data visualization has its own language and its own set of things. 00:16:30.588 --> 00:16:36.890 I mean, it intersects with data literacy and some specific domain expertise 00:16:36.890 --> 00:16:38.801 that you might need to be effective. 00:16:40.052 --> 00:16:43.092 And often I find myself in writing the guidelines, I'm like, 00:16:43.092 --> 00:16:45.994 man, I need them also to read these books. 00:16:45.994 --> 00:16:51.375 Or I find myself wanting to teach data visualization as a discipline, 00:16:51.375 --> 00:16:55.517 and then I can give them guidelines on how to best use visualization. 00:16:56.898 --> 00:17:01.559 And if you don't have that foundation, sometimes the guidelines come off a bit 00:17:01.559 --> 00:17:03.420 short because they have to be so basic. 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:06.280 Yeah, same problem here. 00:17:07.621 --> 00:17:11.823 Yeah, and maybe that's the first real learning I think we all share probably 00:17:11.823 --> 00:17:15.924 is like, you really need to define really well what the purpose of the whole 00:17:15.924 --> 00:17:18.345 thing is and what your audience is. 00:17:18.345 --> 00:17:23.297 Like, is it skilled information designers that use it or should it be implemented 00:17:23.297 --> 00:17:27.508 in an automated system or should it be for total novices, 00:17:27.508 --> 00:17:32.030 like a foolproof system, because that will shape everything in terms of what 00:17:32.030 --> 00:17:35.231 do we even supply people with and in which form, right? 00:17:35.231 --> 00:17:40.394 And yeah, I think if you skip that step, it's going to fall on your feet really soon. 00:17:42.315 --> 00:17:44.115 That's my experience at least. 00:17:46.937 --> 00:17:51.058 But maybe to make this a bit more concrete, maybe we can talk about some of 00:17:51.058 --> 00:17:53.239 the projects you've been working on in that space. 00:17:53.239 --> 00:17:57.541 That gives people a bit of an idea of, okay, what are the different challenges 00:17:57.541 --> 00:18:02.323 and the different types of flavors that exist? So, Alan, do you want to talk 00:18:02.323 --> 00:18:03.623 a bit about Adobe Spectrum? 00:18:03.623 --> 00:18:09.646 Sure, sure. So Adobe Spectrum is our design system. 00:18:10.627 --> 00:18:13.167 If you want to take a look at it, you can find it at spectrum.adobe.com. And, 00:18:18.054 --> 00:18:20.875 Yeah, the first thing I want to point out is that it's a whole team. 00:18:20.875 --> 00:18:22.316 There's a lot of people involved. 00:18:22.696 --> 00:18:28.738 And so I am a small piece of that whole ecosystem that builds and maintains that. 00:18:30.939 --> 00:18:35.501 And the design system was about two years old before we introduced the data viz guidelines. 00:18:36.721 --> 00:18:40.943 We really struggled to articulate and structure the guidelines in a way that 00:18:40.943 --> 00:18:43.644 would make sense and be relevant to our users. 00:18:44.704 --> 00:18:47.445 And we still have a long way to go. I feel like the guidelines right now are 00:18:47.445 --> 00:18:53.828 pretty basic, but yeah, we have that. And the primary purpose of our guideline 00:18:53.828 --> 00:18:56.048 is to help people who are building software. 00:18:56.048 --> 00:18:57.089 Right. 00:18:57.089 --> 00:19:03.131 So it is used for our, you know, dot com website and some other things, 00:19:03.131 --> 00:19:09.133 but the primary focus is for how do we build, you know, really good software using that system. 00:19:09.133 --> 00:19:11.914 Cool. Gabrielle, how about you? 00:19:11.914 --> 00:19:16.442 So I worked on quite a couple and I can't talk about everything. 00:19:16.884 --> 00:19:18.988 So I'll talk about the one I'm publicly allowed to. 00:19:19.910 --> 00:19:23.075 I think the one that's the most public that you can see on the pentagram website 00:19:23.075 --> 00:19:24.338 is the Deloitte insight. 00:19:25.904 --> 00:19:28.524 It's a guideline and templates, so it's not full design systems. 00:19:29.645 --> 00:19:31.446 And so, DeLaw Insight is a magazine. 00:19:31.806 --> 00:19:34.187 It also has a web platform attached to it. 00:19:36.028 --> 00:19:39.309 And previously, before I even joined Pentagram, the team with George Ilobby 00:19:39.309 --> 00:19:42.270 had actually built guidelines for them before editorial database. 00:19:43.110 --> 00:19:47.052 So, we're more creative application. So, that was used only by information designer 00:19:47.052 --> 00:19:49.673 that already knew the roles and were pretty comfortable with it. 00:19:50.273 --> 00:19:54.775 Talking about audience here. And the issue that came back when they came back 00:19:54.775 --> 00:19:58.616 was that we cannot give those guidelines pretty much to our normal designers. 00:19:58.616 --> 00:20:04.789 So the team actually use external, a lot of external designers that are around 00:20:04.789 --> 00:20:07.620 the world with different backgrounds from different countries. 00:20:07.620 --> 00:20:10.841 And they produce like hundreds of data viz per month. 00:20:11.581 --> 00:20:16.663 And they're quite fast, so fast turnaround, you know, little supervision. 00:20:16.983 --> 00:20:20.905 So we were in contact with more of the creative direction marketing data this 00:20:20.905 --> 00:20:24.926 team within the organization, not so much the designers. 00:20:25.327 --> 00:20:30.558 So we had to create templates and guidelines knowing that we have no contact 00:20:30.558 --> 00:20:32.529 with the final designer that's going to use them. 00:20:33.010 --> 00:20:37.531 And they are not specialized in information design, not always at least. 00:20:37.531 --> 00:20:40.812 And they have a high turnaround themselves because they're external contractors. 00:20:41.793 --> 00:20:43.093 So it had to be pretty... It's really 00:20:43.093 --> 00:20:46.494 hard mode. It's like all the hard parameters are switched on, right? 00:20:46.655 --> 00:20:52.697 Yeah, it had to be pretty strict. And also, we were working for both web and print. 00:20:52.697 --> 00:20:53.617 Of course. 00:20:53.617 --> 00:20:56.538 Why not? So just to add a little bit to that. 00:20:56.538 --> 00:20:58.999 So yeah, and a bit of spice, you know. 00:20:58.999 --> 00:21:02.921 And the law inside covers any themes, so it can be any type of data, 00:21:02.921 --> 00:21:06.462 whether it's about people, but you know, economic, like anything, 00:21:06.462 --> 00:21:09.263 everything, throw it in together in one package. 00:21:10.204 --> 00:21:15.605 So that was probably one that I can talk quite a bit on. And the other one is 00:21:15.605 --> 00:21:18.126 for a nonprofit organization that I cannot name. 00:21:18.707 --> 00:21:22.928 They work in the gender equality space. And this one was tricky because we had 00:21:22.928 --> 00:21:26.729 to do it and they hadn't produced any work yet. 00:21:27.350 --> 00:21:33.112 It was made simultaneously to a brand. And so they knew what type of data they were working with. 00:21:33.932 --> 00:21:37.433 But they had not produced anything. So we didn't have anything to even review. 00:21:37.433 --> 00:21:41.535 We had to do from start and we had to make sure it would be used by designers 00:21:41.535 --> 00:21:46.076 and non-designers for social media, PowerPoints, anything possible. 00:21:46.817 --> 00:21:50.618 So that was another challenge on really sensitive topics too. 00:21:50.618 --> 00:21:53.519 So definitely interesting different challenges here. 00:21:55.060 --> 00:22:00.121 Yeah, so you can see already it's quite different requirements and you need 00:22:00.121 --> 00:22:04.783 to be smart about what you do, right? And how that will play out. 00:22:04.783 --> 00:22:08.937 So maybe talking about process, then how do you... 00:22:10.721 --> 00:22:15.103 Address this? Like, do you first build a lot of chart examples, 00:22:15.103 --> 00:22:19.064 like in your design team, and then say like, okay, what are the recurring patterns? 00:22:19.064 --> 00:22:23.876 What seems to work? What doesn't seem to work? Or do you do it more top down in terms of, 00:22:23.876 --> 00:22:27.399 okay, we have the following principles, we have the following project constraints, 00:22:27.399 --> 00:22:31.249 you know, and sort of do it very like deductive in the sense that, 00:22:31.249 --> 00:22:37.071 okay, only one solution, you know, seems to work anymore, now that we have like defined everything? 00:22:37.632 --> 00:22:43.153 Or is it a mixture? Like, how did you address these? How did you approach this 00:22:43.153 --> 00:22:45.014 project? Maybe Gabby, you can. 00:22:45.454 --> 00:22:49.676 Okay, I'll start. It might be very different because we so we even me as an 00:22:49.676 --> 00:22:52.637 independent or within Pentagram, we are external contractors. 00:22:53.457 --> 00:22:56.938 So we don't have access to everything internally in the organization that might 00:22:56.938 --> 00:22:59.439 be quite different than the way Alan works typically. 00:23:00.980 --> 00:23:04.201 So the way I like to work is I start with what I call analysis phase, 00:23:04.201 --> 00:23:08.683 which is just looking at obviously who the organization is. 00:23:08.683 --> 00:23:11.984 The more classic design brief analysis of who the client is, 00:23:11.984 --> 00:23:14.725 what do they know, what do they don't know. 00:23:14.725 --> 00:23:17.966 So if they have data visits, it's great because it gives you a great insight 00:23:17.966 --> 00:23:20.647 on what has been produced, what type of data do they work with, 00:23:20.647 --> 00:23:23.888 what are the mistakes they keep making, what are the problems they keep. 00:23:23.888 --> 00:23:26.409 You can even have a whole almost user research phase. 00:23:26.409 --> 00:23:30.450 So the idea is to... First the diagnosis, then the prescription, right? 00:23:32.731 --> 00:23:36.372 Yeah, a little bit. But just identifying existing useful patterns, 00:23:36.372 --> 00:23:40.854 things that have worked too and things that are not working in the current applications, 00:23:40.854 --> 00:23:42.435 and who is working with it. 00:23:42.435 --> 00:23:45.276 It's way harder when we have a project, like I was talking earlier, 00:23:45.276 --> 00:23:49.737 where we don't have access to those existing applications, because there's none. 00:23:51.278 --> 00:23:54.129 But there's always a base somewhere of what data are they going to use? 00:23:54.619 --> 00:23:55.959 Where is it going to be published? 00:23:56.640 --> 00:24:00.241 So I like the science in space and understanding, again, who is going to use the guidelines and, 00:24:02.164 --> 00:24:05.065 This is the audience of the guidelines. So is it designer or non-designer? 00:24:05.385 --> 00:24:06.925 Because it's not always for designer. 00:24:07.406 --> 00:24:10.587 But also who's the final audience of the data visualization? 00:24:11.007 --> 00:24:12.687 So there's a second layer. 00:24:12.687 --> 00:24:13.808 It's a double hop. 00:24:14.388 --> 00:24:18.870 Yeah, there's a double hop here of like, OK, typically, if you work for a nonprofit, 00:24:18.870 --> 00:24:22.231 the final product is going to be a public, a very uninformed public, 00:24:22.231 --> 00:24:26.152 or on a sensitive topic. So what are the constraints already that I impose on 00:24:26.152 --> 00:24:28.683 the project? So there's all this analysis phase. 00:24:29.394 --> 00:24:33.155 And then I guess it's a bit of a mix match. What I like to do is a bit more of like, 00:24:33.155 --> 00:24:38.997 if it doesn't exist anymore, it's kind of like doing design first and then link 00:24:38.997 --> 00:24:43.979 that back to the foundation of, I find it difficult to build the foundation 00:24:43.979 --> 00:24:45.679 first, decide the colors, everything 00:24:45.679 --> 00:24:47.860 without testing them, because you're gonna end up changing them. 00:24:48.220 --> 00:24:51.861 So I tend to, even if the project doesn't include making templates, 00:24:51.861 --> 00:24:55.143 kind of templatize a little bit, like test out some basic charts or things they 00:24:55.143 --> 00:25:00.224 use regularly to see if we can start finding patterns and put that back into guidelines. 00:25:01.605 --> 00:25:06.407 So that's kind of how it works. The only added thing that I do and then Pentagram 00:25:06.407 --> 00:25:10.328 does too is what we call creative direction, which is maybe a little different 00:25:10.328 --> 00:25:11.708 than a traditional style gal, 00:25:11.708 --> 00:25:15.930 which we're trying to find what makes those these evolutions stand out. 00:25:15.930 --> 00:25:20.311 How do we connect them to the voice of the brand? 00:25:21.472 --> 00:25:25.593 And so it's not just through just colors and typefaces, but is there something 00:25:25.593 --> 00:25:28.674 specific, a specific way of a specific shape you use systematically. 00:25:29.915 --> 00:25:31.455 So not just basic charts. 00:25:31.455 --> 00:25:36.417 Like an actual design idea in a sense that there is, there's like a design approach to it. 00:25:36.417 --> 00:25:39.878 Is there a metaphor that we can use throughout? Is there something that makes 00:25:39.878 --> 00:25:43.719 it stand out that's just not a design decision, but that makes it unique? 00:25:44.039 --> 00:25:47.641 And so that is a little more, on the creative side, that's less common. 00:25:47.801 --> 00:25:51.962 And then it's even harder to explain in Style Guides. But it's part of that 00:25:51.962 --> 00:25:55.283 thinking. And then usually you test that on basic chart and then you test that 00:25:55.283 --> 00:26:00.424 on editorialized charts because all client usually needs editorial charts and not the most basic. 00:26:00.500 --> 00:26:04.282 You know, the most traditional charts, just to check if it works in conjunction 00:26:04.282 --> 00:26:08.143 with other organizational systems, like does it work in a magazine spread, 00:26:08.143 --> 00:26:09.644 does it work in social media format? 00:26:11.104 --> 00:26:15.846 And then we systemize that and we put that all together in like extended guidelines. 00:26:15.846 --> 00:26:19.927 Yeah, but there's an interesting tension because of course you and Georgia of 00:26:19.927 --> 00:26:24.049 course are typically known and booked for a super creative, unique, 00:26:24.049 --> 00:26:26.350 one of a kind work, right? 00:26:26.350 --> 00:26:32.432 And now the expectation is you do that, but also make it repeatable. Right? 00:26:32.892 --> 00:26:35.253 And so I think there's an interesting tension there. 00:26:35.253 --> 00:26:36.233 Yeah. 00:26:36.233 --> 00:26:39.694 It's definitely a challenge. It's actually quite interesting because we end up creating, 00:26:39.694 --> 00:26:43.836 to me, it's almost like I split the guidelines into traditional charts with 00:26:43.836 --> 00:26:47.837 the most traditional bar charts, bar charts, whatever you need to have that 00:26:47.837 --> 00:26:50.418 needs to be made in PowerPoint, like we've got custom design, 00:26:50.418 --> 00:26:53.199 especially if we have users that are not designers. 00:26:53.199 --> 00:26:57.881 So PowerPoint, Canvas, RowGraph, the easy building building blocks that can 00:26:57.881 --> 00:27:01.542 be reproduced and used for anything we port. But then we usually have a second 00:27:01.542 --> 00:27:04.303 section that's for designers, an information designer. 00:27:05.303 --> 00:27:09.065 And sometimes it can overlap a little bit. It can be very simple things that 00:27:09.065 --> 00:27:12.506 you can do. Adding a shadow, adding a texture, photography. 00:27:13.726 --> 00:27:17.407 How do you use photography? Do you crop it? Do you not crop it? Is it textured? 00:27:17.768 --> 00:27:23.029 Is it black and white? Does it use a color? So this is something that we add 00:27:23.029 --> 00:27:27.931 that's almost branding and that adds customization into the guidelines. 00:27:27.931 --> 00:27:32.453 Cool. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, it's super interesting. 00:27:32.853 --> 00:27:36.454 Ellen, I could imagine your process is totally different because you don't work 00:27:36.454 --> 00:27:42.416 in an agency, but it's more this ongoing big ship instead of the little dinghy 00:27:42.416 --> 00:27:44.577 with the little party on it. 00:27:44.577 --> 00:27:48.498 Yeah, yeah. Earlier in my career, I worked for agency. 00:27:49.799 --> 00:27:53.400 And we did a lot of brand guides and things of that nature, which certainly 00:27:53.400 --> 00:27:57.962 informed a lot of the work that I do now, but yeah, it is different. 00:27:57.962 --> 00:28:02.804 And I do think there's no one process for this stuff. It really is, 00:28:02.804 --> 00:28:08.586 part of the problem here is figuring out what an organization needs and how 00:28:08.586 --> 00:28:09.926 you can best deliver that. 00:28:11.847 --> 00:28:16.329 But for us, and one of the advantages of being an internal team is we can deliver 00:28:16.329 --> 00:28:19.630