Today we’d like to introduce you to Xuan Cheng.
Hi Xuan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My years studying Visual Communication Design at Tsinghua University, one of the top institutions in China, ignited my fascination with data as a powerful tool for understanding the world. As a designer, I see data as a storytelling tool rather than an analytical tool, and I also see its potential of serving individuals and communities. After completing my master’s degree in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts, I began my career as a multimedia designer, using data to uncover and share compelling human stories.
In addition to my work in data-driven design, I also took on a role as an editorial designer for a publisher of queer novels in China. This endeavor initially served as a creative counterpoint to my more technical work with data, but I soon discovered that the two fields could be seamlessly integrated – I have a mindset of coding when I design, and I have a design mindset when I analyze data.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Graduating during the pandemic is not easy. Transferring my career from a designer to a data person is even harder. The data science industry, in my experience, has yet to fully recognize the contributions that designers can make to this field. Often, they want only a visually appealing deliverable, something that will please the client. This leads to designers being excluded from the research phase, which, in turn, limits their ability to contribute meaningfully to the project beyond producing a beautiful artifact. Meanwhile, the creative industry has yet to see the potential of data. During my interviews with leading agencies, I frequently heard, “Yes, but we don’t have data.”
I still find myself struggling to find my position because it’s not a job title that exists on LinkedIn.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As my boss once said, I’m “a clump of redwood trees of insane culture-technology nerdery.” My superpower is the ability to weave personal histories and passions into stories people told. At my company, we rely on creative workshops to tackle complex problems. I’ve found that while people often struggle to articulate the product they want, they are always good at describing the challenges they face. As a specialist in understanding individuals’ motivations and aspirations, I use their problems as a lens to gain insight into their personalities. Rather than defining people by superficial characteristics like race or gender, I focus on their needs. For example, I might frame someone’s profile as “A parent who wants to get rid of their children every weekend but put a loving Post-it in their children’s school bags every day.”
This doesn’t only exist in my data work but in my editorial work as well. I witnessed feminism blossoming in the female writers that I worked with. As a graphic designer, I aim to help them express their passion through visual language. So instead of creating empty beautiful artifacts, I focus on authors’ perspectives on ideal relationships and how they challenge gender expectations. And I try to create a parallel of storytelling in every book I made where the author’s written words are presented with graphics, textures, and sounds.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
I’d thank my boss, Nathan Philips, and my editor, both for giving me full trust and paying for my crazy experiments. And I’d thank my friend Grace Kwon, Tara Maurice and my colleague Christine Austin for always being supportive and willing to listen.
Contact Info:
- Website: xuanch.me
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xuan-cheng-09336a174/
