Tasting Menu

Audrée Lapierre & Sébastien Pierre

Filmed on October 8, 2015, at the 2015 AIGA Design Conference.

In this video, explore the rapid evolution of data visualization with the charmingly-accented duo of award-winning, Montréal information-design studio, FFunction. From early art experiences based on data—a la Feltron—to the infographic boom, to this new era of Big Data, this presentation focuses on the development of a new visual language and the challenges that information design’s giddy ascent into the mainstream has generated. Lapierre and Pierre provide insights from the vanguard of international data visualization and discuss FFunction’s process, their trials and errors, and how they turn raw data into visualizations that guide discovery and start important conversations.

Audrée Lapierre is the creative director and co-founder of FFunction, a Montreal studio that combines software engineering and graphic design to deliver functional yet beautiful data visualizations and user interfaces for the web. Her favorite maneuver is turning convoluted data sets into clear, informative, and appealing illustrations. Since being selected as an emerging talent by HOW magazine in 2011, she has led creative initiatives for clients including HP, Canadian Cancer Society, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Geographic, United Nations Global Compact, and UNESCO. Her work has been recognized by AIGA, the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards, FWA, Numix, and Grafika, and featured in major books and magazines internationally. She has been a guest speaker at Visualized NYC, Infopresse, Collide, and now AIGA.

After working as a software engineer  Sébastien Pierre studied design at the University of Strasbourg in France. It was there that he began applying his software development skills to representing information. He founded FFunction in 2008 shortly after moving from France to Montréal. In his spare time Pierre speaks at national and international conferences has a burgeoning digital art practice and is active in the open data community promoting the use of data visualization to achieve better government transparency and prevent corruption in Montréal and beyond.