Jonas Parnow works on the visualisation of climate change scenarios as a research associate at the Urban Complexity Lab. He co-runs the interface and information design Studio Karat and works as a freelancer in Berlin.

Introduction

I’m inter­ested in trans­forming data and infor­ma­tion into visual struc­tures. I have a critical and open under­standing of what visu­al­isa­tion and inter­faces are and reflect on their impact and meaning for our society. Other topics of inter­ests include post-digital media, privacy, inter­sectional feminism, and en­vi­ron­men­tal issues.

I prefer to work for organisations, foundations, universities, journalists, and activists with open source licenses. I also give talks and teach at universities. In Berlin, I co-organise the DataVis Meetup.

I feel comfortable with common front-end, some back-end programming languages and a good range of graphic appli­cations. Most of my visu­al­isa­tions emerge from the combi­nation of various tools ranging from data collection and analysis to custom visu­al­isa­tion.

My private life is naturally influenced by my work and vice versa. Therefore, I am inter­ested in all kinds of design, culture and technology, especially how we can use these tools to create a diverse, equal and fair world.

Even though I had been working for some clients as a photographer I’m no longer taking photographs professionally. Nowadays, photography implies a break and recreation for me. Seeing the beauty of diversity, capturing moments that I shared with people or turning the camera down to hear the stories of the people surrounding me is all part of this journey.

As my work and the projects I work on cover different disciplines and topics, I like to keep them in separate places:

  • visualising.systems
    My recent data visu­al­isa­tion and infor­ma­tion design work
  • away.photos
    A collection of my favourite photography projects
  • karat.studio
    The inter­face and infor­ma­tion studio I co-run
  • datavis.berlin
    A collection of data visu­al­isa­tion links I build for the data vis Meetup
  • zeto.io
    Some online tools I build over the last years
  • Stones that calculate
    Online collection of resources that maps academic as well as artistic perspectives which reflect digital conditions within materialist discourses.
  • jonasparnow.com/notes
    Collection of my thoughts and notes

Vita/Transparency

Jonas Parnow is a designer for infor­ma­tion and data. After his media design Bachelor of Arts from the RFH Cologne in 2012, he started at the info­graphic agency Infographics Group. Besides that, he finished his design Master of Arts at the FH Potsdam. Since 2017, he works as a part-time research associate at the Urban Complexity Lab in the EU-funded Senses research project on the visu­al­isa­tion of climate change scenarios. He is also working at the inter­face and infor­ma­tion design Studio Karat that he co-founded. Besides, he teaches data journalism at the TU Dortmund and data visualisation at the FH Potsdam. He recently worked together with Deutsche Welle, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Gates Foundation, Quanta Magazine, Revision and Zeit Online. He also co-organises the data visu­al­isa­tion meetup in Berlin.

Jonas Parnow identifies as white, cis-male from Germany. Pronouns are he/him.

In order to prevent possible conflicts of interest in my journalistic and educational work, I disclose the following memberships: Amnesty International, BUND, Chaos Computer Club, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte, Greenpeace, Naturschutzbund Deutschland, Rote Hilfe, TOR, WWF and Zentrum für politische Schönheit.