THE BOOK OF FFUNCTIONAn information design studio

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

VISUALS FOR THE INFORMATION AGE

If your organization or business is like most, you’ve got no shortage of data. Facts, figures and opinions are easier than ever to collect. Sorting through it all is more of a challenge—as is getting your message across in a flooded mediascape.

Enter FFunction. We’re a Montreal-based studio specializing in information design, which means presenting data both attractively and effectively.

We combine our expertise in software engineering and graphic design to deliver infographics, data visualizations, user interfaces and other products that make it easy for you to understand and communicate one of your greatest assets: your information.

Information design:

“Visual language has the potential for increasing ‘human bandwidth’—the capacity to take in and more efficiently synthesize large amounts of new information.”

Rober t E. Horn, Stanford University Center for the Study of Language and Informat ion

Reveals hidden patterns and trends within data

Makes it easy to absorb a lot of material at a glance

Tells stories

Allows organizations and businesses to make sense of the environments in which they operate

Is eye-catching, attention- grabbing and beautiful

Is ideal for social-network sharing

Informs stakeholders, employees and target audiences

Can be interactive, allowing users to input their own information or zero in on what is most relevant to them

Brings dormant data to life

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BIG PICTURE

The total amount of data in the world is growing by leaps and bounds each year.

Visuals provide insights faster and more easily than text alone, allowing people to keep up with more of the information that interests them.

Leading organizations are harnessing the power of visual communication.

2013 Annual reports — % who used data visualization

And audiences are sharing infographics more often than other types of content.

Average number of shares per web article by content type

132,000,000,000 GB2005

2006

2009

2010

2011

2013

All List Infographic How toarticles

Forbes magazine’s 50 most admired companies

The Global Journal’s Top 100 NGO’s

What post Why post Video

160,000,000,000 GB

500,000,000,000 GB

800,000,000,000 GB

1,800,000,000,000 GB

4,400,000,000,000 GB

15k

10k

5k

Source: EMC Digital Universe Repor ts

Source (Lef t) : Google Trends

(Right) : ht tp:// learndat .tech.msu.edu/teach/teaching _styles

Based on a 2014 sample of 100 mil l ion web ar t icles by Buzzsumo.com

Visualizing the world’s data just makes sense, given the way the human brain processes information. It helps us to see the forest for the trees, to take in complexity, to advance conversations. It’s why we do what we do.

% of people WHO are visual learners:

60% 60%

65%

Google searches for “infographic”

Forbes

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

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OUR SERVICES

Each dataset is unique, so each one of our creations is custom-made. Here are some of the ways we can put your data to work.

INFOGRAPHICS

Infographics tell a compelling story with facts and numbers. With hundreds of successful ones under our belt, we have raised awareness around everything from diabetes to food insecurity. If you’re spreading your message digitally, then we can go the extra mile and make them interactive, too!

DATA VISUALIZATION

If you need to make clear the trends and relationships within a sea of information, data visualizations are for you. We think beyond charts and graphs, creating sophisticated, beautiful visualizations to make your dataset coherent and easily communicable.

UI/UX DESIGN

We are experienced in building web interfaces, starting with user cases, workflows or site maps before progressing to mock-ups and finally, finished products ready to be linked to your API. Our goal is to let users interact with your application without room for error or confusion.

WE ALSO OFFER

Data visualization

Infographics

UI/UX design

Touchscreen & mobile development

Interactive infographics

Map-based applications

HTML5

Motion graphics

Interactive reports

Custom dashboards

Data journalism

Copywriting and content research

Not sure which solution is best suited to your goals? We can help you figure it out. Get in touch with us at info@ffctn.com.

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

OUR CLIENTS

Information design has an important role to play wherever data is found, and that includes the public and private sectors alike, as well as society at large. They each have their challenges, and we have ample experience working with all three.

Perfect for PR

If your aim is to boost your influence, raise your profile or amplify your key messages, then you can’t afford to overlook the power of data visualization. Let us help you find your visual voice.

In partnership with Edelman, the world’s largest public-relations firm, FFunction has:

Nonprofits

Nonprofits need data to measure their impact and figure out how best to use their resources. They also need to let funders know what they’re up to.

We’ve worked with:

Businesses

From the multinational corporation to the small business, every enterprise needs data to drive strategy, understand markets and speak to consumers.

We’ve worked with:

Governmental Bodies

Whether by visualizing networks of influence abroad or communicating the true cost of homelessness, FFunction has helped public-sector bodies to see and showcase their data in more insightful, actionable ways.

We’ve worked with:

Created infographics

to help Edelman clients communi-cate internally and externally.

Compare and understand

the results of a survey.

Help establish a brand

as a global expert in its industry.

Designed custom dashboards

to help track the effects of PR efforts on the news.

Build public support

for initiatives and convince policymakers to implement them.

Developed interactive reports to:

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

MEET THE TEAM

Sébastien Pierre Founder & Director

software engineering data visualization UI design

Bachelor’s degree in design, software-engineering degree, master’s degree in computer science

After starting out as a software engineer, Sébastien went on to study design at the University of Strasbourg in France. It was there that he began dabbling with applying his software-development skills to representing information. He founded FFunction in 2008, shortly after moving from France to Montréal. In his spare time, Seb 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-viz to achieve better government transparency and prevent corruption in Montreal and beyond.

Audrée Lapierre Creative director

infographics project management data visualization UI design

Bachelor’s degree in graphic design

Since being selected as an emerging talent by HOW Magazine in 2011, Audrée has embraced design challenges in both print and interactive media. Organized to a tee, she has a knack for keeping the team on track, meeting deadlines and exceeding expectations in terms of quality. Her favorite feat is turning convoluted data sets into clear, informative and appealing illustrations. Audrée is also a typography nerd and likes traveling for work and fun.

Wim Bruyninckx Art director

Hailing from Belgium, Wim has a portfolio as rich and varied as his background—thanks to previous design experience for the music, fashion and culture industries. With master’s studies in graphic design and nine years of experience behind him, he still loves drawing as much as he did as a kid.

SamUEL Dupras Web developer

Sam is a computer-science student who initially joined FFunction as part of a co-op program and now has a permanent place on the FFunction team. He keeps busy coding the back-end of FFunctions interactive projects and his passions include building computers, testing hardware and keeping up with technology blogs. In short, he’s the kind of up-and-coming developer that any good company would be glad to foster.

Sarah Faour Communications manager

With a master’s degree in Art Creation and Technology and three languages under her belt, Sarah has a secret weapon: curiosity. “No matter what the topic, I love learning about it, explaining it and making it known,” she says. Sarah keeps FFunction’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and Visualizing accounts up-to-date and brimming with content, and also hunts down other avenues to give the studio exposure.

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

Canada’s Highway 63 and 881 are two of the deadliest routes in and out of Alberta’s oil sands, and have seen hundreds of vehicle-related injuries and dozens of fatalities in the last few years. Most of these accidents were caused by bad weather conditions, wildlife and speeding.

In order to raise awareness about dangerous driving and help reduce the number of fatalities, Coalition for a safer 63 & 881 and DDB asked FFunction to design and develop an interactive visualization of all fatalities from 2003 to 2014. The final result is an educative and emotional interactive experience that summarizes the dangers of highways 63 & 881 while also pinpointing the sites where victims have lost their lives.

The interactive visualization takes the user on a virtual trip along these treacherous stretches of road, using the up and down keys or the mouse to guide the car along each highway. Along the way, the interactive pin-points sites of past fatalities and offers life-saving tips to reduce the risk of crashing, such as putting away your cellphone, turning off cruise control when driving in snowy conditions, and watching out for moose and other wildlife. The experience is also available for tablets and smartphones.

Fatalities of 63 & 881 is a timely reminder that accidents do happen, and aims to encourage safer driving so that less Canadians lose their lives on the road.

CASE STUDies

FATALITIES OF 63 & 881

Client: DDB Edmonton & Coalition for a Safer 63 & 881

Mission: To deliver a high-impact visual representation of Hwy 63 & 881 fatality data packaged with emotional storytelling elements

Check it out ›

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

CASE STUDies

HP EARTH INSIGHTS

Client: Edelman Silicon Valley & Hewlett Packard

Mission: To highlight Hewlett-Packard’s involvement in a worldwide biodiversity project and to demonstrate the power of “big data” in social and environmental initiatives.

Check it out ›

2014 AIGA JUSTIFIED COMPETITION WINNER

Earth Insights is an innovative collaboration between HP and Conservation International that applies data-processing technology to monitor biodiversity loss across the world’s tropical forests. Using millions of animal photos captured by “camera traps,” scientists are able to track how land use, human activity and climate change affect species.

FFunction’s mission was to design an interactive touch-screen presentation introducing Earth Insights at HP Discover Barcelona, an industry conference focused on HP technology applications.

Since we received the data the same time as CI’s scientific team, there were no pre-analyzed findings to highlight. So, we rolled up our sleeves and dug right into the raw numbers. Our prototype visualizations revealed interesting leads in the data and helped to inspire our concept.

Using slideshow, timeline, animated map and data-visualization elements, the finished presentation told stories about threatened animals around the world, the conservationists who are working to protect them and the biodiversity trends they are discovering with the help of data-analysis solutions.

It also integrated statistics and animal photos from fieldwork sites—all into a seamless, intuitive lay-out that captivated visitors to the exhibit and won over the jury of the AIGA Justified design competition for 2014. In a nutshell, it made complex scientific information easy to grasp.

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

Although the Canadian Cancer Society’s annual statistics report is aimed at healthcare professionals, policy makers and researchers, the information it contains is also of interest to the media and the general public. In fact, the Cancer Society regularly gets inquiries about cancer statistics from these groups.

FFunction came on board to communicate changes in cancer incidence, mortality and risk-factor prevalence in a way that would feel relevant to ordinary Canadians. Keeping in mind the need to match the level of detail in a data-viz to the target audience, our solution was a web-based interactive report featuring an easy-to-use design and plain, conversational language.

The first Canadian tool of its kind, It’s My Life! allows users to learn about the impact of cancer. And, taking advantage of what only interactivity can provide, it offers individually tailored prevention suggestions based on a user’s specific risk factors. Finally, it puts an emphasis on sharing user pledges via social media, in a bid to spread the empowering message that cancer often can be prevented.

CASE STUDies

IT’S MY LIFE

Client: Canadian Cancer Society

Mission: To complement a technical cancer-statistics report by disseminating its findings—along with cancer-prevention messages—to the general public.

Check it out ›

USERS SPENT 4:03 MIN ON AVERAGE ON THE SITE

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

Only 30% of the world’s researchers are women. But a closer look at the data reveals some surprising exceptions. For example, in Bolivia, women account for 63% of researchers, compared to France with a rate of 26% or Ethiopia at 8%.

For International Women’s Day, FFunction created an interactive application that presents the latest available data for countries at all stages of develop-ment. Available in English, French and Spanish, it can be easily embedded on a website, blog or social-media site.

Women in Science lets you see gender gaps in the pipeline leading to a research career, from the decision to get a doctorate degree to the fields of research women pursue and the sectors in which they work. Perhaps most importantly, it shows just how crucial it is to encourage girls to pursue mathematics and science at a young age.

Besides helping users gain a better understanding of the provided data, we also kept sight of the theme of the international women’s day: that equality for women is progress for all.

CASE STUDies

WOMEN IN SCIENCE

Client: UNESCO Institute of Statistics

Mission: To visualize the gender gap in scientific research and provide an understanding why it exists—and how to eliminate it.

Check it out ›

INFORMATION IS BEAUTIFUL AWARDS 2014 WINNER — INTERACTIVE

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

Vaccines save lives. But the process leading to clinical trials for a new vaccine requires deep knowledge in a number of fields. Only a handful of researchers, funders and advocates in the medical community are completely familiar with it all.

From Bench to Clinic is a web tool (also available as a downloadable PDF) that helps with the transition of candidate vaccines to phase-1 clinical trials. How? By letting the user navigate through the process and obtain the necessary information for each step (costs, timelines, practical tips and so on).

It also allows users to quickly hone in on the information they need by using a search tool, and to enter variables about their vaccine to see the effects on the timeline and budget.

To make all of this possible, FFunction turned complex and fragmented information into a seamless, interactive visual summary—an accomplishment that made the project a f inalist in the 2014 Numix award for business communication after it debuted at the 2014 AIDS Vaccine conference in Barcelona.

CASE STUDies

FROM BENCH TO CLINIC

Client: Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise

Mission: To help medical researchers efficiently move their vaccines into first-in-human trials.

Check it out ›

FINALIST NUMIX 2014 — NONPROFIT COMMUNICATIONS

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

CASE STUDies

YOUR DAILY DOSE OF WATER

Client: Your Daily Dose of Water

Mission: Encourage good everyday decisions about water usage.

Check it out >

GOOD.IS’ MOST POPULAR INFOGRAPHIC

GOOD is a magazine for the “global citizen and creative changemaker.” Together with Levi’s, it commissioned FFunction to make the issue of water conservation into a personal one.

To do so, we created an interactive infographic that shows all the ways an individual’s daily dose of water adds up on a typical day. After selecting which activities they do and which foods they eat in their daily routine, users get to see just how much they use from morning through to night. The results can be surprising: for the average American, 95 percent of one’s water footprint isn’t from a long shower or running the washing machine—it’s from the food, energy and products one consumes.

In addition to making citizens more water-wise, Your Daily Dose of Water has driven traffic to GOOD’s website—in fact, it has become one of its most popular infographics of all time. The fact that so many people can be made to care about saving water is, well, as refreshing as a tall glass of it.

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THE BOOK OF FFUNCTION

At FFunction, we believe that it is possible to use the power of business as a force of good.

We are not the only ones. Today, there is a growing community of more than 1,000 businesses from 33 countries and over 60 industries working together toward 1 unifying goal: to redefine success in business. Called B Corps, these businesses are certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

FFunction is the only data visualization studio in the world with B Corp certification.

We became a B Corp because we want to join and contribute to a community of companies that are agile, forward-thinking and committed to making change. The B Corp status also allows us to succinctly communicate our values to the world. Part of maintaining our B Corp status is reporting on our Corporate Social Responsibility and making this information available to the public. A couple of highlights from our most recent CSR report:

• 64% of our revenue is from clients who have a positive environmental or

social impact, or who serve underrepresented groups/populations/causes.

• 13% of our revenue is from transparency/political projects.

• 100% of FFunction’s employees walk, bike or take public transport to work.

We are also making positive steps to reduce our emissions and carbon foot-print within the office thanks to some policy and system changes. You can read our CSR report here.

To find out more about the B Corp movement and why it matters, visit their website: https://www.bcorporation.net/.

Get in Touch

We’re happy to offer free quotes and expert advice on how information design and data visualization could benefit your organization. So don’t hesitate: we would love to hear from you!

In person:

400 Atlantic #205, Montréal, Québec, H2V 1A5, Canada

By phone:

+1 (514) 664-4654. Ask for Sébastien or Audrée.

By email:

info@ffctn.com

Via the web:

ffctn.com

Connect on social media: