The Spanish Visualization Diaspora: An Exhibition

If for some reason you’re in Washington DC on Thursday, April 17th, you could drop by the opening of an exhibition titled SPAINfographics. It celebrates the work of dozens of news infographics and visualization journalists and designers who moved to the United States beginning in the 1990’s.

The exhibition was commissioned by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C. and was curated by Adrián Blanco and Artur Galocha, who are part of the Spanish graphics diaspora themselves. You can RSVP here.

Artur and Adrián asked me to write a prologue for the exhibition catalogue. This is what I sent them (this is the draft with no edits; the final version will likely read better):

On the Spanish Infographics Diaspora

Alberto Cairo

I often wonder what has led so many Spanish infographics designers to scatter to the four winds. To my knowledge, we can be found all over Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas (north and south). Many of the most awarded and innovative news infographics teams in the last three decades have had one or more Spaniards among their ranks.

My memory of the Spanish infographics diaspora begins in 2002. That was the first time that I attended the Malofiej International Infographics Summit, organized by the University of Navarra since 1993. Malofiej was discontinued during the COVID pandemic, but until then, it had been a talent catalyst and the main meeting point for journalism professionals specialized in communicating through statistical charts, maps, and illustrations.

In subsequent editions of Malofiej, I crossed paths with many Spanish infographics designers who had succeeded in the United States: Fernando Baptista, Chiqui Esteban, Xaquín G.V. (who worked with me for many years in Spain), Gorka Sampedro, Mónica Serrano, Juan Velasco, Javier Zarracina, and many others.

Those based in the USA talked about working conditions that seemed unimaginable to us, even to those working for the leading Spanish newspapers (I was head of online infographics at El Mundo newspaper until 2005). For example, salaries were not just decent, but even high, at least compared to averages in Spain, where journalism has traditionally been a precarious profession.

They also mentioned reasonable working hours. No staying in the newsroom for ten hours or more, which was common in Spanish media, but rather seven or eight, but properly used. As if that weren't enough, they had reasonable resources, money to attend conferences and workshops, and to finance long-term projects, something unusual in our country.

But working conditions alone do not explain why there are so many Spanish infographics designers in the USA. Most of us did not emigrate on our own initiative, but were invited to move by companies or, as in my case, educational institutions that were impressed by our work. There are, I believe, several factors that have made Spanish infographic designers attractive abroad; among others, our versatility, tenacity, resilience, speed, and good humor.

Most of us who were educated in Spanish media did not have the luxury of being part of large teams with specialists in different areas. We had to do a bit of everything. This forced us to become versatile: we learned to draw, to map, to model in 3D, and later, to program and design data visualizations. We also got used to using multiple visual styles since designing graphics for the Business pages is not the same as doing it for a Sunday supplement.

We overcame shortcomings through enthusiasm and tenacity. If we had to learn to use a new software tool to design a graphic, then we learned it. And this was at a time when there were no social networks, YouTube, or even high-speed internet access to solve a problem or look for tutorials.

We also became very fast, as we faced pretty intense production schedules. A commonly repeated phrase in the world of journalism is that a printed newspaper was and is a daily miracle. Indeed, it is. Even today, I am surprised that a single infographics designer could accomplish so much in a single workday.

My American students are amazed and horrified when I tell them that when I started my career in the mid-90s, a single person or a very small team could produce a full-page or double-page graphic in just five or six hours. This could happen several times a week. I don't feel nostalgic for those times or for the conditions and pressure we endured daily, but they forced us to be fast and resourceful.

Lastly, good humor. I don't know if it's because of our shared past (Spain's history is less epic or glorious than it is tragic and grotesque) or due other factors, but in general, Spanish infographics designers in the USA maintain a certain warmth of character and a subtle irony. We do take our work very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves that seriously, which is rather healthy.

I learned all this at successive Malofiej summits, and I also ended up experiencing it. I emigrated to the USA in 2005 to continue my career as a consultant and freelance designer, and to become a professor. Although I have been happy in this country, which has offered me so many opportunities to grow as a professional and as a person, I must be honest: you leave your country with the excitement of exploring unsuspected horizons, but it is inevitable that at some point, you’ll begin to yearn for the beaches left behind. Over the years, perhaps, you’ll end up returning to them with the feeling that you never really left.