VizChitra 2025: India's first community-driven Data Visualization conference

About
We work with data all the time - figures, time, numbers, and all other visible metrics. But what about something that can’t be seen - like a feeling, emotion or a thought?

I set out to explore whether something intangible as thoughts and emotions could be made visible through data viz. It began as a personal curiosity: if I track my thoughts, can I move on faster by eliminating the trigger? But it quickly turned into using data as a lens to explore emotional journeys and shared human experiences.

Through this proposed showcase, I hope to open up a way of thinking about data not just as numbers, but as containers of emotion, memory, and meaning. Designing for such data demands a system and language of its own. Alongside the final piece, I also want to share glimpse of the process - the evolving database, initial sketches, and visual experiments to give viewers a peek into how emotional data was shaped into a cohesive visual narrative.

Key takeaways
A multi-layered categorisation method to structure subjective inputs like thoughts, metaphors, and memories. Understand how to blend personal narrative with data logic to make non-numerical information accessible and meaningful. Opening up new ways for audience to work with non-traditional dataset. It also demonstrates how a fixed colour palette can be used strategically to highlight patterns and surface insights.

Audience
Data viz practitioners, interested in unconventional data sources and curious about using qualitative data in structured visual formats. Anyone interested in exploring meaning-making beyond just numbers and charts.

About me
I’m an information designer currently in final year of college. I’m passionate about origami and craft, which often shows up in how I approach design - with care, precision, and a love for structure. My data viz work so far has focused on the two E’s - Exhibit and Explain, helping people see and understand data. During my internship at The Hindu, I learned how to design data in digestible formats for a mass audience.

Website - https://chandnitekwani.myportfolio.com/