Digital Portfolio - Javi Cantón

Sketchnotes

Sketchnoting is a way to visually summarize any set of ideas and concepts, in an interconnected way. Creating them live is a challenge that sets concentration in motion and maximizes understanding of what you are trying to summarize, all in a single stream of concentration.

What started as a way to put into practice the benefits of visual thinking has ended up becoming a kind of creative meditation and a way to remember events, books and moments of reflection.

DRAWINGS & SKETCHES

It all started with a combination of small hand-drawn icons and lettering exercises, but has been integrated into my workflow through a methodology called Bullet Journal. The analogue feeling of using only pencil, markers and paper to create images is definitely and simply unique.

Dataviz

I have always been interested in the power of data visualizations to show trends and tell stories from images, leveraging the capabilities of our cognitive processing and the potential of our visual thinking.

Although I have been able to perform some complex visualizations throughout my career, it was in the thesis where I was able to implement numerous analysis and visualization techniques that I had long wanted to perform: geographic analysis, social network analysis (SNA) and content analysis. Especially enjoyable were the imagengrams, based on Lev Manovich's Cultural Analytics methodology.

Digital projects

During my time at Medialab UGR, a research laboratory in culture and digital society at the University of Granada, I participated in the creation of numerous digital projects, many of them related to citizen participation and media literacy. I was free to create and experiment with visual identities.

One of the projects I am most proud of is Radiolab UGR, a digital university radio project, nonexistent until then at the University of Granada, which I had the pleasure of starting and coordinating.

My love for radio has always been there, and being able to share it with the rest of the university community in Granada, teaching many people who were interested in it to use and love this medium, and introducing them to the fantastic world of podcasts through courses, live road shows and talks, has been one of the greatest experiences in my life.

Book covers

A computer graphics friend of mine in 2022 asked me to collaborate with him to design a cover, using designs from social network analysis (SNA). I liked the experience so much that when I was proposed to make a new cover for my research group

I made the proposal following a similar line.

RTVE

The work during 2021 at RTVE (Spain's national public media) as a verification journalist was incredible. I had the opportunity to meet and work with great journalists, as well as to experience new digital formats for media and critical literacy of Spanish citizens. Also to perform complex analysis of disinformation that had not been done so far in the Spanish media sphere.

AI Art

The emergence of new AI-based generative art models such as DALL-E, Midjourney or Stable Diffusion represent a revolution for graphic and visual design. With the excuse of the celebration of an International Seminar that we organized in the IBERIFIER project I was able to experience the possibilities of AI in visual art.