303. Transforming Data into Art: A Conversation with Sarah Kay Miller

Welcome to episode 303 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to data visualization designer Sarah K. Miller. Ready?

Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello.

Hello everyone.

My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation, I am joined by Sarah K. Miller, a data visualization designer. Don't worry, we'll talk all about what that means and how cool it is.

When we get into the show.

And before I tell you a little about Sarah K, we have an important to do for this episode. It's time to say Happy birthday to the Brainy business, which turned five years old yesterday. Can you believe it? Five years of the Brainy Business Podcast. This show has absolutely grown to be even more than I imagined. With more than 900,000 downloads in over 170 countries, it's really amazing to behold. And the reason I chose to have Sarah K's episode be the five year anniversary episode is because she was kind enough to create some really cool pieces of data art to celebrate our downloads and listeners from around the world. We talk about them in the episode today and I'm going to be using them in the art for the episode which you can definitely see when you.

Check out the show notes at the.

Brainy business.com 303 if you don't already follow me on social media. I am the Brainy biz B I Z pretty much everywhere and Melina Palmer on LinkedIn where I'm going to be sharing all this data art fun far and wide. I know Sarah K is planning to share across her channels as well. Links to follow her beautiful work on Instagram where you will find her as the Sarah K S a R a H K a Y as well as.

Episode articles and books are all within.

The app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 303 now let's jump right in. Sarah K. Miller, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

I'm so so excited and I know I will have talked a little bit about how we met and got acquainted at south by Southwest in the intro, but would love to hear for everyone who doesn't yet know about you, what your background is, the work you Do. As I will have said, it's very different than anyone I've had on the show before, which I think is really fun. And know we'll talk about south by and all that sort of stuff too.

Yeah. So I'm Sarah K. Miller. I go by Sarah K. I am a data visualization designer who's independent right now, so freelancing with various different companies out there. My background is in graphic design, so I studied that at university. And yeah, I fell in love my senior year of college and just have not looked back since and have tried to do data viz everywhere I go. So yeah, that's. That's who I am.

So for everyone who's not familiar, and this was me just a couple of weeks ago too, where it was like data art. Like, I mean, you've seen some of it, right? So it's not totally like I don't understand what it is, but you see, it's like a sculpture or one random thing that use data versus it being a career for. For people and something that you study and get to go and do. So can you share a little bit more about and knowing you're talking about data viz versus the talk you were doing at south by Southwest was on data art. So can you share a little bit about what that all means and how one even gets into that? Yeah.

So I mean, data visualization and data art, to me, it's a very gray, blurry, fuzzy line that divides the two of them. And so I do do a little bit of data art, but predominantly I work in data visualization. So to define both. Data viz is charts and graphs, basically at the end of the day. So visualizing things in a way, visualizing data, numbers, categories of things, things that are counted, statistics, visualizing that, making those numbers not look like numbers, but look like shapes, colors, textures, things that make it easier for us as humans to understand at a quick view, instead of trying to imagine how big is, how much bigger is 100 to 1. It's a lot more intuitive when you visualize numbers like that because then you can see what's going on and really start to feel and understand differences, comparisons, patterns, trends over time. All of those things can emerge when you start to visualize data. On the other hand, data art, well, I would say it's a spectrum. They're not opposites, they're very closely related.

We're going along our arms to get to the other hand.

Right?

Exactly, exactly. So there's a beautiful long spectrum of things that can happen between data viz and data art. I Define data art really broadly. So any piece of art or creative endeavor that is inspired by or touched by data. So sometimes I don't think data art necessarily needs to be visualizing something, Although a lot of data art does actually take data sets and visualize that into a more artistic and maybe beautiful kind of way that doesn't necessarily need to be as digestible or quick to understand as a data visualization might be. And so, with that said, there's a huge spectrum of projects that go between there. And so I've worked on projects that are more data vis focused, like style guides. I've done style guides for Deloitte and the Gates foundation, so creating charts and graphs that work within their branding style. But then on the other side of the spectrum, there's more artistic things. Like every year I make a Halloween costume inspired by data. Or there's a lot of beautiful, like quilts that have data as the base of how they're using different shapes and colors in them. And so there's different purposes, different audiences, different meanings for all of these different types of data art and visualizations. And I think it's just beautiful. We live in a world where we can have so many of them right now.

Yeah. I don't know that it would never fully encompass all of the things. And while you were speaking, I was. It was. It broke it into my brain to say, like, the data visualization is to make things easier so you don't. You can get things quicker. And you almost don't have to think about the numbers as much because it intuitively is giving it to you. And in the, you know, behavioral science language here, we'd say it's taking it from being a system 2, or conscious process where you're really having to think about it, to being more system one. It's that sense of touch, the sense of sight, and these. We're able to get that, again, more intuitively from the data visualization. The data art is actually nudging you to be a little bit more thoughtful, to pause, to stop and go, I wonder what that means. Right. We're thinking about it conceptually and what that. How that might feel to us and makes you stop where the other one makes it a little bit easier to process.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So both, I think, are needed and both have different times and places of use in this whole world.

Right? Yeah. And I know one of the people that was on your panel was talking about a project she did for the Fed where it was a big wall mural and someone else was talking about A sculpture that they had made and you know, using machine learning, AI type stuff combined in with the data and thinking about everything.

For me, the piece that I thought.

Was so inspiring about this is when we think about a typical organization of any size, you know, when we think about numbers, we think about data. If people even dig in on them, there's like a standard sort of report and or it's like these are the charts, the end. And here's all the charts, right? So it's like we've got all the charts and like you can see the chart and we all see the chart.

And we all get the chart, right?

Yeah, sure, sure, I get the chart. And you don't really talk about it and most people don't really know what that means because you don't spend enough time stopping and thinking about it. And so even if you end up with a chart, I think the thought process that goes into, and I was having conversations about this and when I've talked about south by Southwest, like one of the main things I talk about is actually this talk because it really changed the way I think about the depth that you would consider data. Because if you think about how much you would have to understand your data to turn it into a piece of art, it is so much more than what anyone does.

Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. There's a whole phase in my process spent on investigating data sets and really understanding what's in these data sets, what is, what are some insights from these, what do we find when we start to layer data sets or compare data sets to each other. But that process also is really enhanced by the clients that I work with and their domain expertise. So while I am a data visualization expert, I'm not necessarily an expert on a specific data set I may be working with. I become very acquainted with it through the process, but that's only by talking with the people who collected the data or are much more familiar with that domain that the data is coming from. And so that's where I think I love working with people and collaborating back and forth because there's a richness that I can bring with visualizing and thinking of how can we tell this story and put this data into either a narrative or some more visually beautiful and eye catching design. Whereas my clients often will have deep expertise about the inner workings of this data set and the insights that are there and other data sets that might pair well with it. So yeah, it's really fun to be able to collaborate with people on their data Sets. And yeah, we go hard on data. We are data nerds for sure.

Yay. Well, we love all kinds of nerds here. All nerds are welcome here at the brainy business. I think the point too is so.

You don't have to go.

You can't invest that much time in all of your data. Right. You can't be turning everything into a piece of art. And if you understand the numbers and the data well enough to be able to know what is worthy of it and what the other stuff means and how it goes together and what doesn't.

Need to be showcased in that way.

Even going through that process allows you to take back the curtain, peel the onion, whatever metaphor we want to use there to. To really get the depth of your company or whatever it is within that data, like what you do, why you do it, why it matters, what we want to be presenting with that. I think there's just so much value in showcasing what you do beyond just, here's the pie chart using the template that we always use.

Yeah. I mean, taking data and kind of threading a narrative through it is something I love to do and is a great way to help people care about what you're trying to convey through that data. Because, yeah, we've all seen million pie charts, a million bar charts, and like, you know, at the end of the day, sometimes it's not that interesting. Even if the data that they're trying to convey, the insight or the message is super important, a lot of times, you know, it is like a really important message someone's trying to get across. But. But by putting it in kind of a default chart, it can really get lost in the mix of, we've seen this a million times, so I'm not really going to spend that much time with it. Whereas when it's something more creative or a step closer to data art on that spectrum, it's a lot more interesting and intriguing and someone might spend a little bit more time with it. And so you have a better chance of communicating your message or idea or that insight in that data to someone.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And so with that, I know you're talking a bit about your process.

Can you share, you know, for everyone.

That'S thinking, like, where would I even start? How do. What. What does that even look like? Of course, you know, everyone pretty much, you know, that's listening is like, you're gonna hire someone like Sarah Kay when you need that, because it's a whole thing. I'm sure there are some people listening that do graphic Design that are excited about incorporated, incorporating this. And like, what does that process even look like? What, you know, how do you approach this conceptually?

Yeah. Well, funny you ask. I thought for this project or for this podcast talk that I would did a little project just to kind of show and talk through my process with an actual example. So I sent you a PDF, you can pop over to that. But the first, there's kind of three ish main phases of any project that I take on. The first is always groundwork, so setting the scope for a project. And so for this project I was like, let's design a little thumbnail for this podcast episode for the YouTube little post. So just a tiny little thing. You sent over some data that you had collected about the podcast since you launched in 2018, I think.

Yeah. And I. So, you know, I know I was kind of debating. We're talking in April, this is going to come out a little bit later. So the data is not. And I don't know if we'll update anything or whatever it is, but is I'm going to have this come out. This is the five year anniversary episode. So we are celebrating five years of the podcast with this and the data art. Because that's awesome. So that is kind of the. The crux of giving you all the data. So this is podcast downloads and everything over five almost years. Yeah, so yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. So in this kind of groundwork phase and like I'm calling these phases, this was a super quick, more of an exercise than a real project, for sure.

Yeah, for someone else it would be more. We'll talk about some of your other projects after this one.

Sure, sure, sure. But yeah, for this one. Yeah. So I looked at some of your current YouTube little thumbnails. You love color. It's visually recognizable and obviously small. It's going to scale down to be pretty small. And you have this great color palette and your cute bubbly logo, which I'll come back to. But then for investigation, that's kind of the next phase where I dive into the data, which honestly I just love. I am always hungry for data. And so you sent over. Yeah, a bunch of data sets. We had downloads by podcasting platform, downloads by location. You had that divided in global countries and then also US States. You had downloads per day and downloads per episode. So it was a lot of data, which was great. And so I visualized that just really kind of like roughly using what you might call basic charts. So for those listening, obviously you can't see this, but.

Well, we do put things on YouTube and that we'll at least eventually have where we're able to showcase some of this and, you know, find a way to show some. Some stuff. I don't know what we'll. What exactly we'll do, but we'll. We'll do something.

Great, great, great.

I'll.

I'll describe what, what is here for now, but yes, go find this. It'll be somewhere on the Internet. So I started by doing some what you might call basic regular visualizations of line charts and bar charts. So downloads per day, I plotted and you know, great news, you've been increasing downloads per day since 2018. So that's kind of this upward trend, which is great. Downloads per episode. I plotted that in two different ways. One, with just every single episode and the number of downloads, which is, yeah, an interesting kind of shape. You've got a spike for the first two episodes, which might be influenced by podcasting platforms, maybe the UX features. Try episode one or something like that could explain those really two outliers there. And then a pretty. Even with a hump of increased downloads through 2021 and 2022, which maybe you were doing good topics then or something, who knows?

I think it's also just as a. Like from my own insight for people that I've. From what I've heard from listeners and things. So I know that there are people that find the show whenever. Right. People find it at whatever episode they find it. I was a guest somewhere else, I was giving a talk, whatever, and then they tune in whenever they tune in. And a lot of people end up going back and saying, like, you know, I want to go back and see like, what's this thing about? And I think you can pretty easily sort to start at episode one. And I think a lot of people will then do one and two. And then there are some people that just decide, like, I have to listen in chronological order and I'm making that happen. And people, other people like to like, pop around and, and find stuff in there. And so that's where I think, you know, one, having the most, two having the next most. And it's pretty consistent that that happens, like you said, whether it's how Apple podcasts or whatever else promotes that to people or how that comes up. But I recently had someone who messaged me, this is sort of a random tangent, but like had said, you know, hey, I just found your podcast. And I specifically remember said, I just found your podcast 11 days ago and I've been binge listening and I only have 50 left. Which if we realize with almost 300 episodes, like, wow, that is a lot of listening to me talk. I. I must be on two times speed or something, which I can't do it. But still, that's still a lot. So anyway, and then I think for the stuff for this year, it's less because you get the. The benefit of stuff that was a year or so older that people are still. I referenced those back and people are continuing to download every day in the back catalog. So that's where you get that lift. So anyway. Yeah, continue.

Yeah, yeah. So that leads to that kind of interesting shape. That's great insights there. And then the bottom chart here is plotted by release date. So you can see more recently. Since. Yeah, late 2022. You've been posting a little bit more recently.

Yes, yeah, I do. Now it's two. So it's always been weekly. And so I don't know if what hap. What's up with the. We probably had a couple that got pushed live for a weird point that there's a gap there because it's been every. It's been weekly for all time. And so some of those dates are a little bit interesting. And then we started doing two a week at the end in October of 2022, which is why it's. It's getting darker there.

Yeah, yeah, so it's great. So that's downloads by episode, downloads by podcast. Podcasting platform. Apple Podcasts is by and far your main platform where people find you, but Apple Core Media, Spotify, Podcast Addict are not too far down the line. And I was amazed that there's like a trillion million different kind of platforms out there.

Yeah, it is amazing to see where people, where people listen from. And yeah, while the Apple stuff is the tippity top and by a very, very wide margin. And then Spotify. But yeah, there's so much, so many ways people find podcasts. And this doesn't even get. You know, I put everything on YouTube, so that's not part of this because it doesn't go into the podcast ads.

True, true, true. Yeah. So lots of different places people can find you, which is great. And then downloads by location. I actually found this kind of fun because we had two data sets here that could really relate to each other. So country which United States is far and away the most, followed by the uk, Canada, Australia and India. And then you also have downloads by states which does map somewhat closely to the state population. So California, Texas, Washington, New York and Illinois are the top states, which also have some of the largest populations in the US but still interesting to see where people are coming from to listen to you. So that was the data set I was most intrigued by and wanted to explore a little bit more.

Yeah. Oh, and just as a. The side of that. So I live in Washington, so that's a piece where there's some here. And then I teach via Texas A and M University, and there's a lot of connections with Texas as well, which is part of why those have always been at the kind of at the top.

Yeah, it's perfect. And I guess California's. Yeah, got that startup.

California's. California.

Right.

That's. Yep.

So, yeah. So from there, having, you know, seen the shape of the data, which is a really important part of my process, I now can start thinking about, okay, let's think about some design ideas and what can we do with this? Where can we go? And so we. I looked at your logo, which is, you know, got purple, which I love. It's bubbly, it's round, it's friendly, it's playful, it's fun, and I love all of those attributes. So I was like, all right, let's do something that's kind of within that sphere and feels, you know, the same as your logo and kind of brand identity. So with that, I always pull some inspiration as well. So I was. I don't know, it was, I think, the typography of your logo that I was like, I'm feeling 1970s, like, a little groovy. It's energetic, bright colors. And I was really drawn to the idea of, like, circles or round shapes, too, to really, like, complement kind of that little cloud you have at the bottom of the rocket logo and, like a brain shape.

Yes. And as a. I don't know that I've talked about it too much on the show. Well, I know I haven't talked about it too much on the show, and I do get questions on it a lot. But the. The logo is, of course, very, very intentional. And when I rebranded, so my old company was called Defying Gravity for Brands that Soar, and it was an apple with wings, and I loved it. It was such a fun brand. But when I was going to launch the podcast to say it's the brainy business podcast brought to you by Defying Gravity for Brands, that story, like, yikes, right? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah. So saying, like, I'm going to go all in on this thing and knowing that, you know, behavioral economics is this concept, it feels very like, is this going to be a super boring lecture. Am I going to hate this? And when people are searching for a podcast and you get to see what's in there, having something that is this soft, squishy, fun, colorful look to it, it feels very safe and like that could be fun. It feels like it could be relatable and you get the little Easter eggs in there. Like you said of having the. The cloud under the rocket being shaped like a brain, having the font almost be those like we were inspired by kind of the brain fold. So in the way of squishing everything kind of in there, but also making.

Sure that it doesn't feel gross.

Was a really. Was a whole thing. And we went with the rocket because of the Defying Gravity previous name. That was how that all kind of came together. I'm sure I'll do more talking about that in other areas, but that was just because we're talking about it now.

And it's the five year anniversary.

It feels like a fun time to mention it.

Yeah. Celebrate that brand. Like it's great that your logo and yeah, typography and colors, they all kind of encapsulate. Yeah. You and this friendly way of talking about behavioral science. So.

Oh, and and we went with purple too. I know that comes up of why, why purple? But you knowing that purple is associated with curiosity and thoughtfulness and because I hadn't actually started using be thoughtful when we finished off the brand and everything.

That came a little bit later.

But that. That mentality was. Was always really important of thinking different, innovation, curiosity. That's why I went purple.

Yeah, I love it. Well, I played with all of these aspects and so I always after looking at inspiration kind of sketching out some. I then sketch out ideas. So I played initially I was like, what if we played with that podcast downloads over time idea and I kind of had a lot more lines and was like we could plot it a little more radially so it's kind of like a sunburst. But then I kind of started sketching with these circles and was like, oh, we could do something really interesting that's round and bubbly with the circles. And it could be downloads by country kind of to celebrate all of the people who are listening and all of the different places and walks of life they come from.

Fun. I love this like slide in the presentation by the way of seeing the thoughtfulness, like you said. And so we'll find a way to share all this like I said. And I'll make sure it's in the show notes or whatever. But I like this.

So these are two little pictures of my sketchbook and my kind of messy sketches.

They're better than things that would take me a very long time to sketch. So thank you.

Thank you. So from these sketches, I kind of went back into some visualization software. I used Flourish in this case, and plotted the different ways the data or your podcast is downloaded by region, so by countries and then also by states within a giant United States. And they're all represented by circle, so area charts, but they really look really fun together. I applied the brand colors, and it's really fun to see the different scale of countries against each other. And also just how many countries, like, your listeners come from all over. And I loved just the scope and how many different countries people are coming to listen to this podcast.

Yeah, it's fun, too. I mean, even just the simple idea of it being in, like, circles within a circle, but that it gets that kind of global reach visually, you know, in what we get to see there. Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, you can have this circle data visualization as well, or if you go to the next one, this is where I kind of stepped into data art. And so this is the final product of moving things around. So instead of the circles being all grouped together in a circle, I was like, well, this is going on YouTube. It'll scale down to be a smaller rectangle. So what if we gave it a little bit more movement and played with the layout of these circles? So they're kind of now aligned along this really elegant swoop? I guess it would be how I would call that. And I brought in a brighter blue, so it would still pop on those thumbnails, but it's really fun and bubbly and kind of catches. Yeah. I hope your brand values of being playful, energetic, colorful. And if you go one more slide, you can see there is a version with labels on it, but for the thumbnail, you can just use it as art without the labels. So that's kind of my whole process with you as an example, there's. Yeah, those three phases. Groundwork, investigating data sets, and then actually designing the visualization itself. So thanks for letting me play with your brand and your data.

Yeah, it's so fun. I. And I love the way that you thought through it, and it is so beautiful, and I love how it showcases everyone so people will get to see. We'll, of course, be sharing it across social media and everything to show some of those final products and figuring out how we'll make a little video or something that gets to show all of what some of those pieces. And along the way, so fun.

I. I love it.

It's so good to see everybody represented there. Whenever I do anniversary episodes, you know, I say, like, and this is where top downloads came from, and talk about top 10 and stuff, but love that we get everyone. Everyone matters. It's not just. Just the most populous.

I think in a lot of ways.

Too, the countries with less matter so much, because I have people that reach out to me from all over the world and will say, like, I'm in Azerbaijan, I'm in Japan, I'm in South Africa, and I love your podcast. And there's nothing here in behavioral economics. Like, what do I do? What do I do? And those people have become students of mine at Texas A and M, we have a virtual program for that and have other ways of being able to, like, give advice and be helpful to people. And so being the first is often scary. And so those places with very few downloads want to make sure they get to have their moment too, so. Totally.

And I love that this visualization, or data art, whatever you want to call it, yeah, really shows all of them. And when you saw the bar chart earlier, they were just tiny little lines and you couldn't even see them. And so in this case, even though an area chart can be difficult to compare sizes, that's not the point of this visualization. It's actually to show everybody and to make sure that they can be seen. And so it's okay that they are. You know, we're not going to get the precise difference of, like, is this country have more listeners than this country. Like, that's not the point of this chart. It's instead to show. Look at all of the different unique countries people are coming from. And you can see them all here in one spot. And they're not a tiny little line. They are a smaller circle, but they are circle nonetheless. And you can see them.

What I really love about them being represented as small circles on a white space, as it's, you know, that negative space or whatnot, and having it be whether it was blue or white, you know, but that clear background, you see them standing out, even if they're kind of pinprick spots, right? They're. They're. They have their moment and they have that negative space around them so that they get to pop regardless. And like, you're saying in the chart where it's just like. And it all really just blurs together like that they have that extra little judge or whatever, right, where we get to Feel them.

Totally.

Yes.

They get to stand out here.

Yeah. And they help make the whole wave go right. We need that all to be, to be part of it. So.

Yeah. So it's, this is a little viz of your community that you've fostered over the past five years.

So. Oh, so fun.

Yeah. Congrats.

Thank you.

And thanks everyone.

We're.

We're all in this together, right?

Yeah. So as you think about some of your other projects, I know you've done, you had done a project on behavioral science in Chicago and also have like, you mentioned Deloitte. Do you have any other projects where we, you said like, okay, so you did some groundwork, you did some data investigation, but it was a very, very simple project for the brainy business on this. So can you talk about one of the more fun projects that you have worked on and knowing that somewhere when.

You were with a different agency and.

Now you're on your own, like what does that all kind of choose your own adventure on how you answer that?

Yeah, yeah, I can walk through, through some of the projects that I have loved in the past and want more clients to come to me with. I've done a really wide range of things and I'm always interested. I mean, I can do basic charts and graphs, I can do annual reports and that's fine. That process can be pretty quick actually, so it can be enjoyable to play with someone's brand. And at the end of the day, I love getting people's data, so those are fine. But I love when a client comes to me and is open minded about a data visualization and willing to step towards that data art side a little bit more and explore more unusual kind of chart types or graphs. And that usually means they have an eye on. You know, I'm not trying to convince the CEO of something, but maybe it's more like a marketing campaign or a creative pop up or, you know, we have this story we want to share through social media, through charts and graphs that are really unique. So all of those kind of mediums are ones that get me more excited and interested about things. So one project I worked on while at Pentagram was for Space10. It was. Space10 is a subsidiary of IKEA. They're kind of like a think tank that does research on interior design, architecture and trends in that space. So they approached us while I was working at Pentagram with Georgia Lupi and asked if we could make a visualization of this report that they had just finished writing called the Digital in Architecture. And it was about the history of tools that architects use and how, you know, the increasing access to digital tools has impacted how architects think about building buildings and how they design buildings, and has ultimately shaped kind of the way we think about designing buildings. So that process was really fun because we actually worked with our client to create a data set. So it isn't always the case that a client comes to me with pre existing data. Sometimes they have an idea or a space for a data visualization. And in this case it was a printed, like a large format printed almost like a newspaper that they wanted us to do visualizations for. And so we came up with the idea of doing this massive fold out timeline that showed the history of buildings referenced in the paper, as well as other buildings that were important to architecture and the digital tools that architects were using. And so it was pretty wild. We collected information about these buildings for 160, I think, buildings, and it was like a lot of information, like when was the building built, who built it, how long did it take to build? What movements was it in? Like postmodernism or art nouveau? Like what kind of stylistic movements was a part of? What materials was it made out of? How tall was it, how wide was it? What kind of purpose was it used for? Was it a commercial building? Was it a residential building? And so all of these data points, we just had this massive spreadsheet with it felt like a million columns of information we collected about these buildings. And for from there, we then had created this incredibly rich data set. And from there we were able to then visualize these buildings in a really fun and unique way, because we had crafted such a fun and unique data set. And so at the end, the end product was we ended up visualizing each building as a building kind of not its typical shape, but an abstracted, kind of sketchy form of a building that was the width and height of the building. So if it was, you know, a low, wide airport, it was kind of a lower, wider thing. But if it was, you know, a tall skyscraper, had a smaller footprint, but was really tall. And so we visualized that along with all of this other data we had collected of where was it built, what movements was it a part of, when was it built and what materials were on it. And so it had each little building was so precious and was kind of almost a data portrait of that building itself with so much data encoded in it in different textures and colors and shapes and lines kind of arranged around it. And it turned out really cool and was just, you know, massively comprehensive. And yeah, it was one of my favorite projects I worked on because we had such a great. Such a great client and they worked with us to help collect and create this data set and made time in the process for us to do that. And yeah, the end product was just really, really fun and a really somewhere in the middle between data visualization and data art, because it was beautiful. But if you stopped and spent time with it, you could decode each of these buildings and learn a lot of interesting things about them.

Yeah, I think that gets to some of the, like, the thoughtfulness, questioning we were talking about. Right. And so you get to. You see it on the surface and like, that's cool. And then you look a little bit deeper and you know, so the example from the brainy business, one of them being like, that the rocket has a brain. Right? Like, oh, oh, oh, fun. Right. Or on my books, that the. In the word either employees or customers is the keyhole, and that there's a key sitting on my name is very intentional of, like, I help you unlock the customer's or employee's brain. Right. Like, those come together in that way. So it's beautiful and interesting from the distance. You know, it's the. But as you get closer and closer, I'm visualizing the moment in Ferris Bueller's Day off where Cameron. They're at the Art Museum in Chicago. And it's like zooming in, in, in, in, in on the. The painting, which I've been there and I've seen it, and I love abstract and impressionistic art. And I, for whatever reason, I'm totally losing the name of that artist and that piece. But.

Yeah, me too.

It's all the little dots. Like, I see it, I know exactly where it is. Right. I've been there. But beautiful piece. But that, like, as you dig in, there you go. I know. Yes, yes.

Take through my art history class.

But as you go closer, closer, closer, closer. Right. You see more and more and more within it. But it's also, you know, you get to like, expand and zoom in and like, different angles and all these things. And so we're each building you. You're able to almost, like, cram so much information in for people that want that depth, but it's still beautiful for people that don't. Versus feeling unfathomably overwhelming, which is what too much data would tend to do.

Totally. Yeah. Another area that I'm really interested in right now is creating data visualizations for social media because it brings a lot of different challenges. So that project for Space10 that I described was ultimately a print piece. So we had the luxury of space, like paper, like someone's attention ultimately too. Like if you're reading something physically, like you're sitting down, you're opening it up and like you're looking at it and you could see, spend a lot of time with it. Whereas, you know, social media is almost the complete opposite of you're trying to make something interesting and catchy that will catch someone's eye and you want to hold their attention. And like, you know, I have issues with social media platforms and the attention economy, like all of that I, I'm not a super big fan of. But it does have a massive reach, especially for young people. And I think helping those young people get these data driven messages is really important. And so thinking about how you can shape a data story or data driven narrative for social media is really interesting and brings its own challenges. Because you don't have the space, you don't have the time. You just have this tiny little square or rectangle to catch someone's attention and put a story in. And so that's something I'm starting to explore more with some of my new clients that I'm picking up is how can we take this story that we did for print or we did for this report and translate some of those insights into a data story that can be on Instagram or TikTok.

Yeah. And I think video clearly is really helpful actually, where you can have the things like evolve over time and they can move. The good or bad of that is video takes a long time.

Totally.

Yeah.

It definitely takes more resources. But I am also a motion designer, so I love combining that data visualization and motion and seeing, you know, how can we tell this story? Yeah, visually and with moving pieces. With moving data.

Yeah, well. And seeing things like grow over time. Right. That's where it's inter. You get mesmerized when you see those sorts of things. Right. So it would be even like, I can just imagine. So with like what you made for me, you know, if we were actually doing a project on that versus you just being very generous and being kind and putting something together for this. Like the. If we were to dig in and do something and be like watching the countries and things grow over time and like bubbles pop up and like as this gets big or something starts to shrink and like, as it goes, I mean, it'll be so fun to see that journey as it comes through or the number of downloads per day or, you know, whatever that ends up being where you can see it happening and you just get to again understand it on a different level when, when you have that, that movement. And the aspect of again seeing how things change over time is it just really helps to make stuff that's just stuff me have meaning which, which is the whole darn point.

Right?

Yeah.

So one, one quick question before we close out because I'm guessing people are wondering this and like you're talking about that project and having so much time to be putting, well, so much data that you were retrieving. How much time does it take to typically do one of these projects if you're gonna like dig in. If you had, if there was a client saying, oh man, our 10 year anniversary is coming up or our 100 year anniversary is coming up and we want to look at something, what would an engagement even look like time wise with you?

Totally. That honestly at the end of the day really depends on the client and the speaker scope of the project. So I've done some projects as quick and like fast as four weeks. That's not ideal. Two months is like my preferred timeline for a small or medium project. But yeah, some of these long term projects, if it's really large or we're collecting a data set from scratch or we're creating something that's, you know, a video or sometimes I'll work with developers to create interactive pieces or a physical museum piece piece, then that can for sure take months. We've had a project, I think our longest project was like a year and a few months, which was a massive project and coordinating with lots of different people for that. But two months for small to medium projects, two to three months is doable for me. So yeah, if you have an anniversary coming up, talk to me before a few months before. That way we have time to collect the data and have time for that whole process. But yeah, it really depends on the scope of the project. Are we collecting data, does the data exist, etc. There's a lot that can go into figuring out how long something will take.

We know the data exists, but does it exist in a way that we can actually.

Is it existing in a spreadsheet already or no?

What do we have here?

So, okay, well we're definitely going to link in the show notes for everyone who wants to, to go learn more and connect with you and to however we're going to be showcasing this amazing and beautiful work you did for me in the brainy business and for them ultimately and for everyone though that wants to learn more and connect with you, you know, what's their best path to do?

So, yeah, I'm like a good little designer. I'm all over Instagram, so you can message me there. I'm at the Sarah K. And I'm also occasionally on Twitter. LinkedIn. Yeah. Bopping around on the Internet. If you Google me, my website should come up. So, yeah, those are good spots to find me.

Perfect. And as we said, we'll definitely link to it in the show notes so you can find Sarah K. Miller and.

Hopefully go forth and make more data.

Beautiful.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Amen.

Well, thanks, Sarah. It was lots of fun. Or Sarah K. It was lots of fun to chat with you today.

Thanks, Melina. You too.

Thank you again to Sarah K. Miller for joining me on this anniversary episode of the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I've been absolutely fascinated by data art or data visualization or whatever.

Else you want to call it, since.

I first heard Sarah K. Talking about it in her panel at south by Southwest. I mean, you know, I talk all the time about being thoughtful and that you need to call out what's important and share that. Can you imagine how well you have to understand your numbers and the work you do to be able to determine what's worthy of a piece of data art and then communicate it in a way that that makes sense to the viewer? The imagery has so much subtext, and there's a richer message that can be communicated in a beautiful piece of data art. It's so amazing to consider and so valuable. And now that I've been on the lookout for amazing data visualization and data art, I've been seeing more examples of.

It, which is really cool.

For example, I recently saw an article in the New York Times, linked in the show Notes, of course, that demonstrated this beautifully. It's one thing to say that there is 74,582,671 square feet of vacant office space in New York City. It's quite another to say that's enough to fill 26.6 Empire State Buildings. They, of course, had a great image.

Showing those buildings all kind of stacked up and in a block together.

And that comparison means something to a human in a way that the 74.4.58 million just doesn't. That comparison has stuck with me and is something I've gone on to share with other people. Yes, it takes work and digging and thoughtfulness to find these cool comparisons, but if you do it with the right stuff, it can be so worth it because if it isn't worth investing the.

Time to look for the comparisons and.

Understanding your data so the person receiving the information will do the right thing with it. Is it worth sharing or spending any time at all? This is a great opportunity for the Pareto principle or the 8020 rule. I would say spend 80% of your time on the 20% of data that's most important or interesting. It's likely going to be much more.

Impactful than if you were to put.

A little bit of effort into creating a bunch of uninspired charts or bits of data and before we close out the show, I need to give a huge and well deserved shout out to Adam Jevny, who has taken many of my classes in Applied Behavioral Economics and whom I first met in person while I was speaking at south by Southwest earlier this year. He was planning to attend Sarah K's session and I decided to tag along and I'm so glad I did. Thank you Adam. We all thank you. And if you want to thank Adam, check out his site. It's all BS to me.com of course. Linked for you in the show Notes I love how he writes. His posts were always very entertaining and enjoyable while I was grading courses. He has such a unique approach to topics and makes really engaging content. Other students would comment on how much they enjoyed his posts too, and I'm so glad he started writing even more at it's all BS to me. Show him your thanks there. And thanks to Sarah K. For sharing her amazing talent with us for the data visualization she's created for the first five years of the Brainy Business Podcast. Check out that imagery and all the other goodies in the show notes which are waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 303 and thank you again to Sarah K. Miller for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You won't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit brain thebrainybusiness. Com.