Giorgia

Data gathering:
This week we’re mapping our purchases, I reported every item I bought, categorizing typologies, the price, how I paid (if cash or credit), if somebody bought me something, if it was an impulse or meditated buy, how long the item would last and whether the salesperson was fun or a jerk.

Disclaimer – beers and dinners are counted together with boyfriend (i.e. I don’t drink 5 beers every evening), (but yes, we definitely like to wind down the working day with a beer or two…who doesn’t? And yes, we definitely like eating out…but who doesn’t? :)

Data drawing:
During this week I started to conceive my postcards as a collection for the first time, thus I want each of them to feel original, new and different from the previous ones. I also try to force myself not to organize data chronologically – because it is the easiest layout for me to imagine – I want to experiment and learn with this project, and I so much love it!

Data pals!
At week 5 we started texting each other about how much we are into it, and I feel very much connected to Stefanie already!
At this point I talk about Dear Data a lot – my friends love it!

Also – I am having a lot of fun to save some time for this project every week-end and I think my visual explorations are very useful for my work, it’s R&D isn’t it? :) 

The Process: 

Stefanie

Data-gathering:
Capturing data on transactions is so much easier than some of the more esoteric data-gathering. Because of Giorgia’s great cards, I’m trying to work a little harder at my data-gathering this week. 

Besides the usual price / time / date / purchase data, I’ve tried to gather whether I thought the purchase was necessary or not, and the type of purchase it was.

Data memories: 
Getting a wax and realising that I would have to track this data (facepalm).

Data drawing:
I’ve started to use red to annotate the main ‘How to read it’ text with little comments. But oh, I spent so much time trying to figure out how to draw this data and I’m still not totally happy with the results. I think some of this might be because I am trying to cram too much data into one little drawing, and perhaps I need to edit out some of this and only highlight the most interesting patterns. I guess I’m experiencing the usual balancing act that we as information designers face in our professional lives, but instead for a very personal project. 

Giorgia’s card: 
Again: WHAT IS GIORGIA DOING? Her data gathering totally freaks me out… I would never think about approaching the data-gathering from the angles she chooses, they're great to look over. I feel reassured by Giorgia’s plentiful beer purchases due to my previous drunken data void, ha. I know she SAYS the beers are for her boyfriend but honestly, I don’t believe a word of it. 

The Process: