June 2026: Data Viz Month!
We hosted a series of conversation about the politics of information design, the history of the diagram, and data humanism.
In May, we talked with Studio Folder co-founder and information designer Marco Ferrari about the politics of data visualization and data designer and Pentagram Partner Giorgia Lupi about data as a language.
EDITOR’S NOTE
When I was a design student — almost twenty years ago now! — I got into what was then the niche subfield of information design. Inspired by designers like Nicholas Felton, who created highly detailed annual reports of his own life, I did a series of projects in school around visualizing data. In many ways, some of those projects helped me get my first job as a brand design in New York where I got to work on a series of information graphics and data visualizations over my tenure there. I’ve since moved away from that type of work but have followed it closely over the years. It’s been surprising to me to see how these fields — data visualization, information design — have gone from nerdy and niche to central to the graphic design fields.
It wasn’t exactly planned but May turned out to Data Visualization Month here at Scratching the Surface and I’ve found myself thinking about that early part of my career again. What I like about so many of the current practitioners around data visualization is how much of the work is also an interrogation of visualizations themselves: the politics of data, how visualizing data encourages certain readings, why we trust something displayed in a chart. I spoke to Marco Ferrari, the co-founder of Studio Folder and head of the Information Design program at Design Academy Eindhoven about his work and how he’s trying to move design upstream in the data process. Then, in my conversation with Pentagram partner Giorgia Lupi, we talk about her concept of data humanism and how learning to “speak data” can be a way to reclaim our autonomy in the era of big data.
Finally, in the first issue of The Book Review, our new monthly books column, I talked to Mario Mainetti, the director of public programs and publishing at Fondazione Prada about AMO/OMA’s recent exhibition, Diagrams, and the process of turning that show into a book. Going forward, we’ll go deep on one book each month, either with an interview, roundup, or review, and move the studio arrivals feature, previously in this newsletter, over there. I hope you enjoy it!
My conversation with Giorgia is our last episode of this season. We’re going on summer break and will be back with new episodes in the Fall. Over the next few months, we’ll rebroadcast some old favorite episodes and continue to expand our content here on Substack. Most of that will be free for everyone but some will be behind our paywall so if you like what we do here and want to support this work, you can upgrade your subscription for just $5/month or $50/year for full access Paid members get bonus interviews each month — like this month’s interview with Christopher Hawthorne — and help keep the show free for everyone, all the time. Thanks for listening.
See you next month,
Jarrett
SCRATCH
Recent essays, interviews, and stories published on our Scratch platform.
Christopher Hawthorne on Punch List and the state of architecture criticism
I first interviewed Christopher Hawthorne back on the podcast back in 2018 (episode 96), shortly after he was appointed by then-mayor Eric Garcetti to serve as Los Angeles’s first Chief Design Officer. Upon completing that role, Hawthorne has kept busy: he moved east where he’s teaching at Yale, returning to writing for a variety of publications, and, most notably, launching
PAST GUESTS
Recent work, writing, and news from former guests of Scratching the Surface.
👏 Congratulations to Mark Lamster on winning a Pulitzer for Criticism! (Pulitzer)
✏️ Be Like Mike: Jack Murphy on how a new exhibition reminds us how good Michael Sorkin was. (The Architect’s Newspaper)
👅 No Time Like the Present: Michael Rock on how artificial intelligence is changing fashion, taste, and design history. (Numero China)
🎨 Kyle Chayka on the lo-fi rebellion against AI. (New Yorker)
📓 A monument to Black Education: Alexandra Lange on how the Rosenwald Schools are still standing. (CityLab)
🗣️ Verbiage as Viagra: Edwin Heathcote on how architecture’s shifting language is a record of its insecurities. (Untapped)
🩶 Shades of Grey: Francisco Laranjo on design worlds in the age of the prompt. (Slanted)
🏃♂️ Taste over haste: Anne Quito on why nurturing creative visions matters more than ever in the era of automation. (Adobe Design)
🚲 Glenn Adamson on why genuine patina is personal and priceless. (Untapped)
🏛️ The Rise of Tech and the Death of Discourse: Kate Wagner on architecture in the 21st century. (PIN-UP)
THE BOOK REVIEW
Recent work, writing, and news from former guests of Scratching the Surface.
Discussing OMA’s Diagrams with Fondazione Prada’s Mario Mainetti
Welcome to the first edition of Book Review, a new monthly column from Scratching the Surface on books in and around design, architecture, and culture. Each month, we’ll do a deep dive into a new book or publication, either in the form of a review, an interview, or roundtable and share round ups of new books that arrive in the studio each month.
READ/WATCHED/HEARD
Articles, books, videos, and other ephemera that caught our eye this month.
👀 Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu announce title and theme of Biennale Architecttura 2027 (The Architect’s Newspaper)
🤔 What aesthetic is this? Elizabeth Goodspeed on the push to categorize visual culture. (It’s Nice That)
🎥 What Are People For? is a new short documentary from Gary Hustwit on designer and former Institute of Design dean Patrick Whitney. (What Are People For?)
🗿Design in the 21st century: Jay Osgerby on The Shift from Objects to Systems. (PIN-UP)
JOB WATCH
People getting new jobs in and around the design world.
Michelle Millar Fisher is appointed Chief Curator of Cooper Hewitt. (Cooper Hewitt)
Jamie Blosser named Curator of the Loeb Fellowship. (Harvard GSD)
Bryan Boyer tapped as first faculty director of the new University of Michigan Center for Innovation. (Taubman College)
UIC appoints Marc Manack as next School of Architecture director. (Archinect)
Nicholas de Monchaux appointed dean of the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkley.
POSTSCRIPT
I usually like for these Postscripts to be a piece of visual culture that caught my eye or that I’d been thinking about lately but this month, I’m going to use it for some self promotion. I’m very excited to announce that my new book, Graphic Designers After Graphic Design, will be published by Princeton Architectural Press in September! The book feels like both an expansion and focusing of the work I’ve been doing on Scratching the Surface for the last decade. It’s a collection of new interviews, profiles, and case studies of emerging graphic designers working at the edge of practice. Taken together, I hope the book makes the case that our definitions of graphic design can be much wider than we often allow them. We’ll have more to say about it in the coming months but for now, you can preorder it wherever you get your books!
