Team | Hayoon Choi, Francis Park, Proud Taranat, Sarah Xi

Timeline: 7 weeks

Class & Advisor | Kyuha Shim


Project Overview

UNCOVER AIGA is a web experience that allows users to engage in a data exploration of the 2019 AIGA Design Census. Using an expansive spreadsheet with over 9000 responses about designers’ income, quality of work/life amongst other data points, UNCOVER AIGA translates the depth of a designer’s experience beyond a statistic by providing insight to quotes and anecdotes: the true thoughts and voices behind the numbers we so easily digest.

Amazing opening animation by Hayoon

Amazing opening animation by Hayoon


RESEARCH + ANALYSIS

Understanding the Census

To begin the project, our group got to familiarizing ourselves with the 2019 AIGA Design Census. We started by parsing through this massive spreadsheet that contains thousands of responses from designers across America (9,430 to be exact). This process started individually to give everyone some time to better understand what exactly we would be interested in exploring.

We used various forms of high-level analysis to understand the content, from generating graphs to taking more qualitative approaches with word maps.

This massive sheet...

This massive sheet...

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Using word mapping by selecting specific demographics of designers and quotes in the survey.

Using word mapping by selecting specific demographics of designers and quotes in the survey.

Through this process, we found ourselves drawn to a column of data that allowed the users to input a long-form response that answered: I feel the most critical issues/challenges facing design are: ... Many of the responses responded to topics surrounding equity, access, the way one’s identity intersects with their practice. When crossing the quotes with the more statistical research we’d done, we found interesting relationships between concrete things happening in the industry and the perspectives of those affected by them.

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