This assignment was part of a Domestika course. We had to design a simple line diagram where the horizontal axis is time adjusted to our project and the values of the vertical axis something that is of interest to us. And somewhere among the support materials I found this very inspiring example.

I knew instantly what I’d like to visualize in this excersize: my son was born in April 2019. Our first 10 days were full of unexpected, shocking events. We’ve had some very high and some real deep points emotionally. I wanted to visualize these distances, this intensity.

I decided to show 10 days of time on the horizontal axis and assigned two equal parts for the vertical axis: +5 to 0 where I’ve felt being ‘up, high’, and 0 to -5 where I’ve felt being rather ‘down’. At each point I’ve described how I felt at that moment and added some details of what happened to make it more understandable/relatable.

One of the challenges of this project was that my aim was to create a digital picture while the subject itself is something delicate asking for being illustrated with manual drawing techniques. The main object of the picture is the line diagram – which I was determined to create through some slow manual process. The slowness of the process was allegorical to the pace of time during those 10 days. That’s how the picture of red chain-stitches on paperboard became the first visual element which was later accompanied by aquarel paintings and pencil drawings. The axes, texts and other visual elements were added using Inkscape in order to achieve visual integrity and harmony.

This process made me process my feelings too, and now I’m proud to tell: that was my way into motherhood – this is how we became a family.

And every way is different. Wat would you tell us through a graph like this?