We used data analysis & visualization to explore what designers thought about the future of design.
What do designers think about the future of design? To explore this question, our team looked to the annual AIGA design census. Through analyzing data trends, we found three popular lenses through which to view design’s future: an embracing of new technology, a return to analog design skills, and an increase in concerns about ethics and diversity within design. Within those wider lenses, there were smaller generational trends. These varying perspectives told several stories about how the design field could evolve.
Working as one of three designers, I helped analyze the initial data, develop the visual system for the project, and design some of the spreads visualizing our findings.
ROLE & TEAM
Me - Designer
Hee Seo Chun - Designer
Faith Kim - Designer
SKILLS
Information design, data visualization & analysis, narrative design, color, type
TOOLS
Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator
DURATION
3 months
Process: data analysis, translation, and visualization—
All of AIGA’s data is free to download in a massive spreadsheet. With over 13,000 participants, setting additional parameters was necessary in order to focus the project.
Through a combination of CSV Explorer and Python scripts, we narrowed down our data using age as a dividing factor, identified our lenses, and peppered in our own commentary and theories as to why the trends looked the way they did. We hypothesized that in a rapidly changing field like design, generational differences would be substantial. The census data, however, showed a less neat picture.
Breakdown of the project’s visual system
Organizing the data (click to enlarge)
Within our three lenses, we also saw smaller trends, marked in this book by colors in the right margin of each spread.
Pink indicates generational consistency or consensus, yellow indicates an outlier generation, green indicates consistent up or down trends, and orange represents the differences in the generations.
Finally, we included our own commentary throughout the book on white stickers. Since we’re also designers, we have our own perspectives on what this data means for us.
