Stefanie Posavec and Miriam Quick have a new book out called I am a book. I am a portal to the universe.
I’m different to any other book around today. I am not a book of infographics. I’m an informative, interactive experience, in which the data can be touched, felt and understood, with every measurement represented on a 1:1 scale. How long is an anteater’s tongue? How tiny is the DNA in your cells? How fast is gold mined? How loud is the sun? And how many stars have been born and exploded in the time you’ve taken to read this sentence?
Using all the elements that make a book, well, a book in a completely original way, I blend playful design and data storytelling to introduce scientific concepts to a broad, all-ages readership.
Instead of using traditional visual encodings, Posavec and Quick use the actual pages of the book — the physical weight, dimensions, and texture — to represent data. You’re invited to drop the book to test gravity, snap the cover shut to hear a measure in decibels, and to run your finger across the pages as a proxy for time and distance.
A fun one for the kids and the adults. I’m sure it’ll make its way over to the US, but it looks like you can get the UK edition in a roundabout way via Amazon. Or, if you’re in Europe, you can go direct to the source.
