Designer turns data into shoes

Austrian graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister created two shoes for German footwear brand Ekn that use data visualization to tell stories about renewable energy and homelessness.

Exhibition runs through April

The shoes are on view at Sagmeister's exhibition Finally, Something Good at the Paris gallery Gaîté Lyrique through April two thousand twenty-seven.

Exhibition looks at the long term

Sagmeister says the exhibition is meant to look at the world over the long term rather than through daily news. Each shoe uses data to tell a story.

The key is in the footbed

The key to understanding what the shoes say is written in the footbed, where data and statistics are explained for wearers to read.

Bring It On shows energy sources

The Bring It On, a multicolored sneaker, uses data from the Energy Institute's two thousand twenty-four Statistical Review of World Energy.Yellow represents hydropower, black represents wind, pink represents solar, and red represents all other renewables.

Solar data already outdated

Sagmeister says the shoe is already out of date.In two thousand twenty-five figures published that summer, solar passed wind for the first time, so the pink panel should be slightly bigger than the black one.

“Wonderfully, the shoe is already out of date.”

Like a Complete Unknown shows homelessness

His other shoe, Like a Complete Unknown, is a boot that uses circles to represent the relative homeless populations of six countries.

Homelessness rates by country

The biggest circles are for the U.S. at seventy-six, and Germany at forty-six, followed by the U.K. at sixteen, France at eight, Mexico at five, and Japan at two per one hundred thousand inhabitants.

Numbers reflect counting differences

Sagmeister says countries count differently, so the numbers are not perfect. But Mexico, a much poorer country, reports a fifteenth of the American rate, and a gap that size is not only a counting difference.

“Countries count differently, so the numbers are not perfect, but Mexico, a much poorer country, reports a fifteenth of the American rate, and a gap that size is not only a counting difference.”

Sagmeister's homelessness experience

Sagmeister volunteered for the Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy and service organization. What stayed with him was why some countries handle the same problem so much better than others.

Data becomes conversation starter

By turning data visualization into shoes, Sagmeister makes the data into a functional conversation starter that people wear and carry with them every day.