Speak Data: Giorgia Lupi and Phillip Cox, with Maggie Gram

Join us for a conversation with Giorgia Lupi and Phillip Cox to celebrate their new book, a uniquely interdisciplinary and humanizing look at how data in every form shapes our lives. They will be in conversation with Maggie Gram, followed by a signing.

PLEASE NOTE: RSVPs are encouraged but not required. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. Doors open at 5:30 pm.

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This is no ordinary data science book. Speak Data is the first pop nonfiction book to explore the definition of data and its impacts on our daily lives. Bold color graphics and playful illustrations by award-winning information designer Giorgia Lupi guide you from one observation and revelation to the next.

“Data is almost anything, because almost anything can get recorded. But it’s kind of a magical thing—potentially one of the most powerful things humans have ever done.” —James Clear, author of Atomic Habits

Today we are told that data is everywhere, from the smartphones in our pockets to the satellites in space. But what is data, really? What role does it play in our lives? And why should anyone care?

Through inspiring illustrations and a fresh, accessible approach, Speak Data invites us to see data differently—not just as numbers on a screen or tick marks in a chart, but as a language to help us better understand each other and the world around us. Seventeen thought-provoking conversations with leaders in business, tech, medicine, psychology, health, art, and more explore the human side of data, unpacking its powerful ability to divulge patterns, tell stories, stir emotion, and illuminate complexity. While often stereotyped as abstract or intimidating, here data is revealed as something far different: personal, nuanced, and above all, human made.

Featuring:

• Tech pioneer John Maeda on the value of data visualization during global emergencies
• Marketing legend Seth Godin on how to use data to get people to really care about climate change
• Museum curator Paola Antonelli on whether data is art
• Author James Clear on the ways data can (and can’t) describe human identity
• AI data artist Refik Anadol on how big datasets can dream
• And many more

In this uniquely interdisciplinary study, authors Giorgia Lupi and Phillip Cox present data as a vocabulary that anyone can use and that anyone can understand. If we learn to truly “speak data,” we can open up new worlds of meaning for ourselves and everything around us.

Giorgia Lupi is a designer, artist, and partner at the international design firm Pentagram. A two-time TED speaker, she is a leading voice for a more humanistic approach to data. She is the co-author of two previous books on data: Dear Data and Observe, Collect, Draw! A Visual Journal. In 2022 she was awarded the National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the highest award in the design field.

Photo Credit: Claudia Mandlik

Phillip Cox is a writer and strategist. He is the author of What a Building Does: The Hoosier Modernisms of Evans Woollen, and his essays on architecture and design have appeared in Untapped Journal, MAS Context, and Los Angeles Review of Architecture. He was previously an associate partner at Pentagram Design.

Maggie Gram is a designer and cultural historian. Her book The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History was published in June 2025 by Basic Books. Maggie leads a design team at Google; has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Washington University in St. Louis, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and Harvard University; and has written for n+1 and the New York Times. She lives with her wife and children in Brooklyn, New York.

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